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+Project Gutenberg's Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8
+       A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more
+       than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Charles F. Horne
+
+Release Date: March 30, 2009 [EBook #28456]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT MEN AND FAMOUS WOMEN. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sigal Alon, Christine P. Travers and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Mme. Roland in the Prison of Ste. Pélagie.]
+
+
+
+
+GREAT MEN AND FAMOUS WOMEN
+
+
+_A Series of Pen and Pencil Sketches of_
+
+THE LIVES OF MORE THAN 200 OF THE MOST PROMINENT PERSONAGES IN HISTORY
+
+
+VOL. VI.
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1894, BY SELMAR HESS
+
+edited by Charles F. Horne
+
+[Illustration: Publisher's arm.]
+
+New-York: Selmar Hess Publisher
+
+
+Copyright, 1894, by SELMAR HESS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME VI.
+
+
+  SUBJECT                         AUTHOR                          PAGE
+
+  BENEDICT ARNOLD,            _Edgar Fawcett_,                     207
+  PETER COOPER,               _Clarence Cook_,                     299
+  CHARLOTTE CORDAY,           _Oliver Optic_,                      229
+  GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER,   _Elbridge S. Brooks_,                391
+  SIR HUMPHRY DAVY,           _John Timbs, F.S.A._,                277
+  THOMAS ALVA EDISON,         _Clarence Cook_,                     404
+  JOHN ERICSSON,              _Martha J. Lamb_,                    311
+  CYRUS W. FIELD,             _Murat Halstead_,                    354
+  GENERAL JOHN C. FRÉMONT,    _Jane Marsh Parker_,                 340
+  ROBERT FULTON,              _Oliver Optic_,                      267
+  WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON,     _William Lloyd Garrison_,            318
+  GENERAL CHARLES GEORGE
+    GORDON,                   _Colonel R. H. Veitch, R.E._,        384
+  NATHAN HALE,                _Rev. Edward Everett Hale_,          212
+  ANDREAS HOFER,                                                   246
+  DR. EDWARD JENNER,          _John Timbs, F.S.A._,                263
+  ELISHA KENT KANE,           _General A. W. Greely_,              325
+  THADDEUS KOSCIUSKO,                                              216
+  LOUIS KOSSUTH,                                                   304
+  MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE,      _William F. Peck_,     221
+  FERDINAND DE LESSEPS,       _Clarence Cook_,     334
+  DAVID LIVINGSTONE,          _Professor W. G. Blaikie, L.L.D._,   350
+  _Letter of Affection and
+    Advice from Livingstone
+    to his Children_,                                              353
+  QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA,    _Mrs. Francis G. Faithfull_,         249
+  MARIE ANTOINETTE,           _Mrs. Octavius Freire Owen_,         241
+  _Letter to Marie Antoinette
+    from Maria Theresa on the
+    Duties of a Sovereign_,                                        242
+  SAMUEL F. B. MORSE,                                              297
+  FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE,       _Lizzie Alldridge_,                  369
+  DR. LOUIS PASTEUR,          _Dr. Cyrus Edson_,                   378
+  MADAME ROLAND,              _Ella Wheeler Wilcox_,               233
+  GENERAL SAN MARTIN,         _Hezekiah Butterworth_,              281
+  HENRY M. STANLEY,           _Noah Brooks_,                       395
+  GEORGE STEPHENSON,          _Professor C. M. Woodward_,          286
+  QUEEN VICTORIA,             _Donald Macleod, D.D._,              361
+  JAMES WATT,                 _John Timbs, F.S.A._,                256
+  WILLIAM WILBERFORCE,                                             272
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+VOLUME VI.
+
+
+PHOTOGRAVURES
+
+  ILLUSTRATION                           ARTIST              TO FACE PAGE
+
+  MME. ROLAND IN THE PRISON OF
+    STE. PÉLAGIE,                     _Évariste Carpentier_ _Frontispiece_
+  THE ARCH OF STEEL,                  _Jean Paul Laurens_          224
+  CHARLOTTE CORDAY AND MARAT,         _Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry_   230
+  MARIE ANTOINETTE,                   _Théophile Gide_             244
+  QUEEN LOUISE VISITING THE POOR,     _Hugo Händler_               250
+  THE FIRST VACCINATION--DR. JENNER,  _Georges-Gaston Mélingue_    266
+  VICTORIA GREETED AS QUEEN,          _H. T. Wells_                362
+  PASTEUR IN HIS LABORATORY,          _Albert Edelfelt_            380
+
+
+
+
+WOOD-ENGRAVINGS AND TYPOGRAVURES
+
+  ANDREAS HOFER LED TO EXECUTION,     _Franz Defregger_            248
+  WATT DISCOVERING THE CONDENSATION
+    OF STEAM,                         _Marcus Stone_               256
+  SAMUEL F. B. MORSE, INVENTOR OF
+    THE TELEGRAPH,                    _From a photograph_          298
+  CUTTING THE CANAL AT PANAMA,        _Melton Prior_               338
+  WINDSOR CASTLE,                     _G. Montbard_                364
+  GORDON ATTACKED BY EL MAHDI'S
+    ARABS,                            _W. H. Overend_              388
+  CUSTER'S LAST FIGHT,                _A. R. Ward_                 394
+  STANLEY SHOOTING THE RAPIDS OF
+    THE CONGO,                        _W. H. Overend_              400
+  THOMAS A. EDISON--THE WIZARD OF
+    MENLO PARK,                                                    406
+
+
+
+
+BENEDICT ARNOLD[1]
+
+         [Footnote 1: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By EDGAR FAWCETT
+
+(1741-1801)
+
+[Illustration: Benedict Arnold.]
+
+
+Some of Arnold's biographers have declared that he was a very
+vicious boy, and have chiefly illustrated this fact by painting him
+as a ruthless robber of birds'-nests. But a great many boys who
+began life by robbing birds'-nests have ended it much more
+creditably. The astonishing and interesting element in Benedict
+Arnold's career was what one might term the anomaly and incongruity
+of his treason. Born at Norwich, Conn., in 1741, he was blessed from
+his earliest years by wholesome parental influences. The education
+which he received was an excellent one, considering his colonial
+environment. Tales of his boyish pluck and hardihood cannot be
+disputed, while others that record his youthful cruelty are
+doubtless the coinings of slander. It is certain that in 1755, when
+the conflict known as "the old French war" first broke out, he gave
+marked proof of patriotism, though as yet the merest lad. Later, at
+the very beginning of the Revolution, he left his thriving business
+as a West India merchant in New Haven and headed a company of
+volunteers. Before the end of 1775 he had been made a commissioned
+colonel by the authorities of Massachusetts, and had marched through
+a sally-port, capturing the fortress of Ticonderoga, with tough old
+Ethan Allen at his side and 83 "Green Mountain Boys" behind him.
+Later, at the siege of Quebec, he behaved with splendid courage.
+Through great difficulties and hardships he dauntlessly led his band
+to the high-perched and almost impregnable town. Pages might be
+filled in telling how toilsome was this campaign, now requiring
+canoes and bateaux, now taxing the strength of its resolute little
+horde with rough rocks, delusive bogs and all those fiercest
+terrors of famine which lurk in a virgin wilderness. Bitter cold,
+unmerciful snow-falls, drift-clogged streams, pelting storms, were
+constant features of Arnold's intrepid march. When we realize the
+purely unselfish and disinterested motive of this march, which has
+justly been compared to that of Xenophon with his 10,000, and to the
+retreat of Napoleon from Moscow as well, we stand aghast at the
+possibility of its having been planned and executed by one who
+afterward became the basest of traitors.
+
+During the siege of Quebec Arnold was severely wounded, and yet he
+obstinately kept up the blockade even while he lay in the hospital,
+beset by obstacles, of which bodily pain was doubtless not the
+least. The arrival of General Wooster from Montreal with
+reinforcements rid Arnold, however, of all responsibility. Soon
+afterward the scheme of capturing Quebec and inducing the Canadas to
+join the cause of the United Colonies, came to an abrupt end. But in
+his desire to effect this purpose Arnold had identified himself with
+such lovers of their country as Washington, Schuyler, and
+Montgomery. And if the gallant Montgomery had then survived and
+Arnold had been killed, history could not sufficiently have
+eulogized him as a hero. Soon afterward he was promoted to the rank
+of brigadier-general, and on October 11, 1776, while commanding a
+flotilla of small vessels on Lake Champlain, he gained new celebrity
+for courage. The enemy was greatly superior in number to Arnold's
+forces. "They had," says Bancroft, "more than twice his weight of
+metal and twice as many fighting vessels, and skilled seamen and
+officers against landsmen." Arnold was not victorious in this naval
+fray, but again we find him full of lion-like valor. He was in the
+Congress galley, and there with his own hands often aimed the cannon
+on its bloody decks against the swarming masses of British gunboats.
+Arnold's popularity was very much augmented by his fine exploits on
+Lake Champlain. "With consummate address," says Sparks, "he
+penetrated the enemy's lines and brought off his whole fleet,
+shattered and disabled as it was, and succeeded in saving six of his
+vessels, and, it might be added, most of his men." Again, at the
+battle of Danbury he tempted death countless times; and at Loudon's
+Ferry and Bemis's Heights his prowess and nerve were the perfection
+of martial merit. It has been stated by one or two historians of
+good repute that Arnold was not present at all during the battle of
+Saratoga; but the latest and most trustworthy researches on this
+point would seem to indicate that he commanded there with discretion
+and skill. He was now a major-general, but his irascible spirit had
+previously been hurt by the tardiness with which this honor was
+conferred upon him, five of his juniors having received it before
+himself. He strongly disliked General Gates, too, and quarrelled
+with him because of what he held to be unfair behavior during the
+engagement at Bemis's Heights. At Stillwater, a month or so later in
+the same year (1777), he issued orders without Gates's permission,
+and conducted himself on the field with a kind of mad frenzy, riding
+hither and thither and seeking the most dangerous spots. All concur
+in stating, however, that his disregard of life was admirable, in
+spite of its foolish rashness. In this action he was also severely
+wounded.
+
+One year later he was appointed to the command of Philadelphia, and
+here he married the daughter of a prominent citizen, Edward Shippen.
+This was his second marriage; he had been a widower for a number of
+years before its occurrence, and the father of three sons. Every
+chance was now afforded Arnold of wise and just rulership. In spite
+of past disputes and adventures not wholly creditable, he still
+presented before the world a fairly clean record, and whatever minor
+blemishes may have spotted his good name, these were obscured by the
+almost dazzling lustre of his soldierly career. But no sooner was he
+installed in his new position at Philadelphia than he began to show,
+with wilful perversity, those evil impulses which thus far had
+remained relatively latent. Almost as soon as he entered the town he
+disclosed to its citizens the most offensive traits of arrogance and
+tyranny. But this was not all. Not merely was he accused on every
+side of such faults as the improper issuing of passes, the closing
+of Philadelphia shops on his arrival, the imposition of menial
+offices upon the sons of freemen performing military duty, the use
+of wagons furnished by the State for transporting private property;
+but misdeeds of a far graver nature were traced to him, savoring of
+the criminality that prisons are built to punish. The scandalous
+gain with which he sought to fill a spendthrift purse caused wide
+and vehement rebuke. For a man of such high and peculiar place his
+commercial dabblings and speculative schemes argued most deplorably
+against him. There seems to be no doubt that he made personal use of
+the public moneys with which he was intrusted; that he secured by
+unworthy and illegal means a naval State prize, brought into port by
+a Pennsylvanian ship; and that he meditated the fitting up of a
+privateer, with intent to secure from the foe such loot on the high
+seas as piratical hazard would permit. His house in Philadelphia was
+one of the finest that the town possessed; he drove about in a
+carriage and four; he entertained with excessive luxury and a large
+retinue of servants; he revelled in all sorts of pompous parade.
+Such ostentation would have roused adverse comment amid the simple
+colonial surroundings of a century ago, even if he had merely been a
+citizen of extraordinary wealth. But being an officer intrusted with
+the most important dignities in a country both struggling for its
+freedom and impoverished as to funds, he now played a part of
+exceptional shame and folly.
+
+Naturally his arraignment before the authorities of the State soon
+followed. The Council of Pennsylvania tried him, and though their
+final verdict was an extremely gentle one, its very mildness of
+condemnation proved poison to his truculent pride. Washington, the
+commander-in-chief, reprimanded him, but with language of exquisite
+lenity. Still, Arnold never forgave the stab that was then so
+deservingly yet so pityingly dealt him.
+
+His colossal treason--one of the most monstrous in all the records
+of history, soon afterward began its wily work. Under the name of
+_Gustavus_ he opened a correspondence with Sir Henry Clinton, an
+English officer in command at New York. Sir Henry at once scented
+the sort of villainy which would be of vast use to his cause,
+however he might loathe and contemn its designer. He instructed his
+aide-de-camp, Major John André, to send cautious and pseudonymic
+replies. In his letters Arnold showed the burning sense of wrong
+from which he believed himself (and with a certain amount of
+justice) to be suffering. He had, when all is told, received harsh
+treatment from his country, considering how well he had served it in
+the past. Even Irving, that most dispassionate of historians, has
+called the action of the court-martial just mentioned an
+"extraordinary measure to prepossess the public mind against him."
+Beyond doubt, too, he had been repeatedly assailed by slanders and
+misstatements. The animosity of party feeling had more than once
+wrongfully assailed him, and his second marriage to the daughter of
+a man whose Tory sympathies were widely known had roused political
+hatreds, unsparing and headstrong.
+
+But these facts are merely touched upon to make more clear the
+motive of his infamous plot. Determined to give the enemy a great
+vantage in return for the pecuniary indemnity that he required of
+them, this unhappy man stooped low enough to ask and obtain from
+Washington, the command of West Point. André, who had for months
+written him letters in a disguised hand under the name of John
+Anderson, finally met him, one night, at the foot of a mountain
+about six miles below Stony Point, called the Long Clove. Arnold,
+with infinite cunning, had devised this meeting, and had tempted the
+adventurous spirit of André, who left a British man-of-war called
+the Vulture in order to hold converse with his fellow-conspirator.
+But before the unfortunate André could return to his ship (having
+completed his midnight confab and received from Arnold the most
+damning documentary evidence of treachery) the Vulture was fired
+upon from Teller's Point by a party of Americans, who had secretly
+carried cannon thither during the earlier night. André was thus
+deserted by his own countrymen, for the Vulture moved away and left
+him with a man named Joshua Smith, a minion in Arnold's employ. Of
+poor André's efforts to reach New York, of his capture and final
+pathetic execution, we need not speak. On his person, at the time of
+his arrest, was found a complete description of the West Point post
+and garrison--documentary evidence that scorched with indelible
+disgrace the name of the man who had supplied it.
+
+On September 25, 1780, Arnold escaped to a British sloop-of-war
+anchored below West Point. He was made a colonel in the English
+army, and is said to have received the sum of £6,315 as the price of
+his treachery. The command of a body of troops in Connecticut was
+afterward given him, and he then showed a rapacity and intolerance
+that well consorted with the new position he had so basely
+purchased. The odium of his injured countrymen spoke loudly
+throughout the land he had betrayed. He was burned in effigy
+countless times, and a growing generation was told with wrath and
+scorn the abhorrent tale of his turpitude. Meanwhile, as if by
+defiant self-assurance to wipe away the perfidy of former acts, he
+issued a proclamation to "the inhabitants of America," in which he
+strove to cleanse himself from blame. This address, teeming with
+flimsy protestations of patriotism, reviling Congress, vituperating
+France as a worthless and sordid ally of the Crown's rebellious
+subjects, met on all sides the most contemptuous derision. Arnold
+passed nearly all the remainder of his life--eleven years or
+thereabouts--in England. He died in London, worn out with a nervous
+disease, on June 14, 1801. It is a remarkable fact that his second
+wife, who had till the last remained faithful to him, suffered
+acutely at his death, and both spoke and wrote of him in accents of
+strongest bereavement.
+
+To the psychologic student of human character, Benedict Arnold
+presents a strangely fascinating picture. Elements of good were
+unquestionably factors of his mental being. But pride, revenge,
+jealousy, and an almost superhuman egotism fatally swayed him. He
+desired to lead in all things, and he had far too much vanity, far
+too little self-government, and not half enough true morality to
+lead with success and permanence in any. The wrongs which beyond
+doubt his country inflicted upon him he was incapable of bearing
+like a stoic. Virile and patriotic from one point of view, he was
+childish and weak-fibred from another. He has been likened to
+Marlborough, though by no means so great a soldier. Yet it is true
+that John Churchill won his dukedom by deserting his former
+benefactor, James II, and joining the Whig cause of William of
+Orange. If the Revolution had been crushed, we cannot blind our eyes
+to the fact that Arnold's treason would have received from history
+far milder dealing than is accorded it now. Even the radiant name of
+Washington would very probably have shone to us dimmed and blurred
+through a mist of calamity. Posterity may respect the patriot whose
+star sinks in unmerited failure, but it bows homage to him if he
+wages against despotism a victorious fight. Supposing that Arnold's
+surrender of West Point had extinguished that splendid spark of
+liberty which glowed primarily at Lexington and Bunker Hill, the
+chances are that he might have received an English peerage and died
+in all the odor of a distinction as brilliant as it would have been
+undeserved. The triumph of the American rebellion so soon after he
+had ignominiously washed his hands of it, sealed forever his own
+social doom. That, it is certain, was most severe and drastic. The
+money paid him by the British Government was accursed as were the
+thirty silver pieces of Iscariot; for his passion to speculate
+ruined him financially some time before the end of his life, and he
+breathed his last amid comparative poverty and the dread of still
+darker reverses.
+
+Extreme sensitiveness is apt to accompany a spirit of just his
+high-strung, petulant, and spleenful sort. Beyond doubt he must have
+suffered keen torments at the disdain with which he was everywhere
+met in English society, and chiefly among the military officers whom
+his very conduct, renegade though it was, had in a measure forced to
+recognize him. When Lord Cornwallis gave his sword to Washington,
+its point pierced Arnold's breast with a wound rankling and
+incurable. He had played for high stakes with savage and devilish
+desperation. Our national independence meant his future slavery; our
+priceless gain became his irretrievable loss. It is stated that as
+death approached him he grew excessively anxious about the risky and
+shattered state of his affairs. His mind wandered, as Mrs. Arnold
+writes, and he fancied himself once more fighting those battles
+which had brought him honor and fame. It was then that he would call
+for his old insignia of an American soldier and would desire to be
+again clothed in them. "Bring me, I beg of you," he is reported to
+have said, "the epaulettes and sword-knots which Washington gave me.
+Let me die in my old American uniform, the uniform in which I fought
+my battles!" And once, it is declared, he gave vent to these most
+significant and terrible words: "God forgive me for ever putting on
+any other!" That country which he forswore in the hour of its direst
+need can surely afford to forgive Benedict Arnold as well. Grown the
+greatest republic of which history keeps any record, America need
+not find it difficult both to forget the wretched frailties of this,
+her grossly misguided son, and at the same time to remember what
+services he performed for her while as yet his baleful qualities had
+not swept beyond all bounds of restraint.
+
+[Signature: Edgar Fawcett.]
+
+
+
+
+NATHAN HALE[2]
+
+         [Footnote 2: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By Rev. EDWARD EVERETT HALE
+
+(1755-1776)
+
+[Illustration: Nathan Hale.]
+
+
+Nathan Hale, a martyr soldier of the American Revolution, was born
+in Coventry, Conn., on June 6, 1755. When but little more than
+twenty-one years old he was hanged, by order of General William
+Howe, as a spy, in the city of New York, on September 22, 1776.
+
+At the great centennial celebration of the Revolution, and the part
+which the State of Connecticut bore in it, an immense assembly of
+the people of Connecticut, on the heights of Groton, took measures
+for the erection of a statue in Hale's honor. Their wish has been
+carried out by their agents in the government of the State. A bronze
+statue of Hale is in the State Capitol. Another bronze statue of him
+has been erected in the front of the Wadsworth Athenæum in Hartford.
+Another is in the city of New York.
+
+Nathan Hale's father was Richard Hale, who had emigrated to
+Coventry, from Newbury, Mass., in 1746, and had married Elizabeth,
+the daughter of Joseph Strong. By her he had twelve children, of
+whom Nathan was the sixth.
+
+Richard Hale was a prosperous and successful farmer. He sent to Yale
+College at one time his two sons, Enoch and Nathan, who had been
+born within two years of each other. This college was then under the
+direction of Dr. Daggett. Both the young men enjoyed study, and
+Nathan Hale, at the exercises of Commencement Day took what is
+called a part, which shows that he was among the thirteen scholars
+of highest rank in his class.
+
+From the record of the college society to which he belonged, it
+appears that he was interested in their theatrical performances.
+These were not discouraged by the college government, and made a
+recognized part of the amusements of the college and the town. Many
+of the lighter plays brought forward on the English stage were thus
+produced by the pupils of Yale College for the entertainment of the
+people of New Haven.
+
+When he graduated, at the age of eighteen, he probably intended at
+some time to become a Christian minister, as his brother Enoch did.
+But, as was almost a custom of the time, he began his active life as
+a teacher in the public schools, and early in 1774 accepted an
+appointment as the teacher of the Union Grammar School, a school
+maintained by the gentlemen of New London, Conn., for the higher
+education of their children. Of thirty-two pupils, he says, "ten are
+Latiners and all but one of the rest are writers."
+
+In his commencement address Hale had considered the question whether
+the higher education of women were not neglected. And, in the
+arrangement of the Union School at New London, it was determined
+that between the hours of five and seven in the morning, he should
+teach a class of "twenty young ladies" in the studies which occupied
+their brothers at a later hour.
+
+He was thus engaged in the year 1774. The whole country was alive
+with the movements and discussions which came to a crisis in the
+battle of Lexington the next year. Hale, though not of age, was
+enrolled in the militia and was active in the military organization
+of the town.
+
+So soon as the news of Lexington and Concord reached New London, a
+town-meeting was called. At this meeting, this young man, not yet of
+age, was one of the speakers. "Let us march immediately," he said,
+"and never lay down our arms until we obtain our independence." He
+assembled his school as usual the next day, but only to take leave
+of his scholars. "He gave them earnest counsel, prayed with them,
+shook each by the hand," and bade them farewell.
+
+It is said that there is no other record so early as this in which
+the word "independence" was publicly spoken. It would seem as if the
+uncalculating courage of a boy of twenty were needed to break the
+spell which still gave dignity to colonial submission.
+
+He was commissioned as First Lieutenant in the Seventh Connecticut
+regiment, and resigned his place as teacher. The first duty assigned
+to the regiment was in the neighborhood of New London, where,
+probably, they were perfecting their discipline. On September 14,
+1775, they were ordered by Washington to Cambridge. There they were
+placed on the left wing of his army, and made their camp at the foot
+of Winter Hill. This was the post which commanded the passage from
+Charlestown, one of the only two roads by which the English could
+march out from Boston. Here they remained until the next spring.
+Hale himself gives the most interesting details of that great
+victory by which Washington and his officers changed that force of
+minute-men, by which they had overawed Boston in 1775, into a
+regular army. Hale re-enlisted as many of the old men as possible,
+and then went back to Coventry to engage, from his old school
+companions, soldiers for the war. After a month of such effort at
+home, he came back with a body of recruits to Roxbury.
+
+On January 30th his regiment was removed to the right wing in
+Roxbury. Here they joined in the successful night enterprise of
+March 4th and 5th, by which the English troops were driven from
+Boston.
+
+So soon as the English army had left the country, Washington knew
+that their next point of attack would be New York. Most of his army
+was, therefore, sent there, and Webb's regiment among the rest. They
+were at first assigned to the Canada army, but because they had a
+good many seafaring men, were reserved for service near New York,
+where their "web-footed" character served them well more than once
+that summer. Hale marched with the regiment to New London, whence
+they all went by water to New York. On that critical night, when the
+whole army was moved across to New York after the defeat at
+Brooklyn, the regiment rendered effective service.
+
+It was at this period that Hale planned an attack, made by members
+of his own company, to set fire to the frigate Phoenix. The frigate
+was saved, but one of her tenders and four cannons and six swivels
+were taken. The men received the thanks, praises, and rewards of
+Washington, and the frigate, with her companions, not caring to risk
+such attacks again, retired to the Narrows. Soon after this little
+brush with the enemy, Colonel Knowlton, of one of the Connecticut
+regiments, organized a special corps, which was known as Knowlton's
+Rangers. On the rolls of their own regiments the officers and men
+are spoken of as "detached on command." They received their orders
+direct from Washington and Putnam, and were kept close in front of
+the enemy, watching his movements from the American line in Harlem.
+It was in this service, on September 15th, that Knowlton's Rangers,
+with three Virginia companies, drove the English troops from their
+position in an open fight. It was a spirited action, which was a
+real victory for the attacking force. Knowlton and Leitch, the
+leaders, were both killed. In his general orders Washington spoke of
+Knowlton as a gallant and brave officer who would have been an honor
+to any country.
+
+But Hale, alas! was not fighting at Knowlton's side. He was indeed
+"detached for special service." Washington had been driven up the
+island of New York, and was holding his place with the utmost
+difficulty. On September 6th he wrote, "We have not been able to
+obtain the least information as to the enemy's plans." In sheer
+despair at the need of better information than the Tories of New
+York City would give him, the great commander consulted his council,
+and at their direction summoned Knowlton to ask for some volunteer
+of intelligence, who would find his way into the English lines, and
+bring back some tidings that could be relied upon. Knowlton summoned
+a number of officers, and stated to them the wishes of their great
+chief. The appeal was received with dead silence. It is said that
+Knowlton personally addressed a non-commissioned officer, a
+Frenchman, who was an old soldier. He did so only to receive the
+natural reply, "I am willing to be shot, but not to be hung."
+Knowlton felt that he must report his failure to Washington. But
+Nathan Hale, his youngest captain, broke the silence. "I will
+undertake it," he said. He had come late to the meeting. He was pale
+from recent sickness. But he saw an opportunity to serve, and he did
+the duty which came next his hand.
+
+William Hull, afterward the major-general who commanded at Detroit,
+had been Hale's college classmate. He remonstrated with his friend
+on the danger of the task, and the ignominy which would attend its
+failure. "He said to him that it was not in the line of his duty,
+and that he was of too frank and open a temper to act successfully
+the part of a spy, or to face its dangers, which would probably lead
+to a disgraceful death." Hale replied, "I wish to be useful, and
+every kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honorable
+by being necessary. If the exigencies of my country demand a
+peculiar service, its claims to perform that service are imperious."
+These are the last words of his which can be cited until those which
+he spoke at the moment of his death. He promised Hull to take his
+arguments into consideration, but Hull never heard from him again.
+
+In the second week of September he left the camp for Stamford with
+Stephen Hempstead, a sergeant in Webb's regiment, from whom we have
+the last direct account of his journey. With Hempstead and Asher
+Wright, who was his servant in camp, he left his uniform and some
+other articles of property. He crossed to Long Island in citizen's
+dress, and, as Hempstead thought, took with him his college diploma,
+meaning to assume the aspect of a Connecticut schoolmaster visiting
+New York in the hope to establish himself. He landed near
+Huntington, or Oyster Bay, and directed the boatman to return at a
+time fixed by him, the 20th of September. He made his way into New
+York, and there, for a week or more apparently, prosecuted his
+inquiries. He returned on the day fixed, and awaited his boat. It
+appeared, as he thought; and he made a signal from the shore. Alas!
+he had mistaken the boat. She was from an English frigate, which lay
+screened by a point of woods, and had come in for water. Hale
+attempted to retrace his steps, but was too late. He was seized and
+examined. Hidden in the soles of his shoes were his memoranda, in
+the Latin language. They compromised him at once. He was carried on
+board the frigate, and sent to New York the same day, well guarded.
+
+It was at an unfortunate moment, if anyone expected tenderness from
+General Howe. Hale landed while the city was in the tenor of the
+great conflagration of September 21st. In that fire nearly a quarter
+of the town was burned down. The English supposed, rightly or not,
+that the fire had been begun by the Americans. The bells had been
+taken from the churches by order of the Provincial Congress. The
+fire-engines were out of order, and for a time it seemed impossible
+to check the flames. Two hundred persons were sent to jail upon the
+supposition that they were incendiaries. It is in the midst of such
+confusion that Hale is taken to General Howe's head-quarters, and
+there he meets his doom.
+
+No testimony could be stronger against him than the papers on his
+person. He was not there to prevaricate, and he told them his rank
+and name. There was no trial, and Howe at once ordered that he
+should be hanged the next morning. Worse than this, had he known it,
+he was to be hanged by William Cunningham, the Provost-Major, a man
+whose brutality, through the war disgraced the British army. It is a
+satisfaction to know that Cunningham was hanged for his deserts in
+England, not many years after.[3]
+
+         [Footnote 3: Such is the current tradition and belief, that
+         he was hanged at Newgate; but Mr. George Bancroft found no
+         such name in the records of the prison.]
+
+Hale was confined for the night of September 21st in the greenhouse
+of the garden of Howe's head-quarters. This place was known as the
+Beckman Mansion, at Turtle Bay. This house was standing until within
+a few years.
+
+Early the next day he was led to his death. "On the morning of the
+execution," said Captain Montresor, an English officer, "my station
+being near the fatal spot, I requested the Provost-Marshal to permit
+the prisoner to sit in my marquee while he was making the necessary
+preparations. Captain Hale entered. He asked for writing materials,
+which I furnished him. He wrote two letters; one to his mother and
+one to a brother officer. The Provost-Marshal destroyed the letters,
+and assigned as a reason that the rebels should not know that they
+had a man in their army who could die with so much firmness."
+
+Hale asked for a Bible, but his request was refused. He was marched
+out by a guard and hanged upon an apple-tree in Rutgers's orchard.
+The place was near the present intersection of East Broadway and
+Market Streets. Cunningham asked him to make his dying "speech and
+confession." "I only regret," he said, "that I have but one life to
+lose for my country."
+
+[Signature: Edward E. Hale.]
+
+
+
+
+THADDEUS KOSCIUSKO
+
+(1746-1817)
+
+
+Among the remarkable men of modern times there is perhaps none whose
+fame is purer from reproach than that of Thaddeus Kosciusko. His
+name is enshrined in the ruins of his unhappy country, which, with
+heroic bravery and devotion, he sought to defend against foreign
+oppression and foreign domination. Kosciusko was born at Warsaw
+about the year 1746. He was educated at the School of Cadets, in
+that city, where he distinguished himself so much in scientific
+studies as well as in drawing, that he was selected as one of four
+students of that institution who were sent to travel at the
+expense of the state, with a view of perfecting their talents. In
+this capacity he visited France, where he remained for several
+years, devoting himself to studies of various kinds. On his return
+to his own country he entered the army, and obtained the command of
+a company. But he was soon obliged to expatriate himself again, in
+order to fly from a violent but unrequited passion for the daughter
+of the Marshal of Lithuania, one of the first officers of state of
+the Polish court.
+
+[Illustration: Thaddeus Kosciusko.]
+
+He bent his steps to that part of North America which was then
+waging its war of independence against England. Here he entered the
+army, and served with distinction as one of the adjutants of General
+Washington. While thus employed, he became acquainted with
+Lafayette, Lameth, and other distinguished Frenchmen serving in the
+same cause, and was honored by receiving the most flattering praises
+from Franklin, as well as the public thanks of the Congress of the
+United Provinces. He was also decorated with the new American order
+of Cincinnatus, being the only European, except Lafayette, to whom
+it was given.
+
+At the termination of the war he returned to his own country, where
+he lived in retirement till the year 1789, at which period he was
+promoted by the Diet to the rank of major-general. That body was at
+this time endeavoring to place its military force upon a respectable
+footing, in the vain hope of restraining and diminishing the
+domineering influence of foreign powers in what still remained of
+Poland. It also occupied itself in changing the vicious constitution
+of that unfortunate and ill-governed country--in rendering the
+monarchy hereditary, in declaring universal toleration, and in
+preserving the privileges of the nobility, while at the same time it
+ameliorated the condition of the lower orders. In all these
+improvements Stanislas Poniatowski, the reigning king, readily
+concurred; though the avowed intention of the Diet was to render the
+crown hereditary in the Saxon family. The King of Prussia (Frederick
+William II.), who, from the time of the treaty of Cherson, in 1787,
+between Russia and Austria, had become hostile to the former power,
+also encouraged the Poles in their proceedings; and even gave them
+the most positive assurances of assisting them, in case the changes
+they were effecting occasioned any attacks from other sovereigns.
+
+Russia at length, having made peace with the Turks, prepared to
+throw her sword into the scale. A formidable opposition to the
+measures of the Diet had arisen, even among the Poles themselves,
+and occasioned what was called the confederation of Targowicz, to
+which the Empress of Russia promised her assistance. The feeble
+Stanislas, who had proclaimed the new constitution in 1791, bound
+himself in 1792 to sanction the Diet of Grodno, which restored the
+ancient constitution, with all its vices and all its abuses. In the
+meanwhile Frederick William, King of Prussia, who had so mainly
+contributed to excite the Poles to their enterprises, basely
+deserted them, and refused to give them any assistance. On the
+contrary, he stood aloof from the contest, waiting for that share of
+the spoil which the haughty empress of the north might think proper
+to allot to him, as a reward of his non-interference.
+
+But though thus betrayed on all sides, the Poles were not disposed
+to submit without a struggle. They flew to arms, and found in the
+nephew of their king, the Prince Joseph Poniatowski, a general
+worthy to conduct so glorious a cause. Under his command Kosciusko
+first became known in European warfare. He distinguished himself in
+the battle of Zielenec, and still more in that of Dubienska, which
+took place on June 18, 1792. Upon this latter occasion he defended
+for six hours, with only 4,000 men, against 15,000 Russians, a post
+which had been slightly fortified in twenty-four hours, and at last
+retired with inconsiderable loss.
+
+But the contest was too unequal to last; the patriots were
+overwhelmed by enemies from without, and betrayed by traitors
+within, at the head of whom was their own sovereign. The Russians
+took possession of the country, and proceeded to appropriate those
+portions of Lithuania and Volhynia which suited their convenience;
+while Prussia, the friendly Prussia, invaded another part of the
+kingdom.
+
+Under these circumstances the most distinguished officers in the
+Polish army retired from the service, and of this number was
+Kosciusko. Miserable at the fate of his unhappy country, and at the
+same time an object of suspicion to the ruling powers, he left his
+native land and retired to Leipsic, where he received intelligence
+of the honor which had been conferred upon him by the Legislative
+Assembly of France, who had invested him with the quality of a
+French citizen.
+
+But his fellow-countrymen were still anxious to make another
+struggle for independence, and they unanimously selected Kosciusko
+as their chief and generalissimo. He obeyed the call, and found the
+patriots eager to combat under his orders. Even the noble Joseph
+Poniatowski, who had previously commanded in chief, returned from
+France, whither he had retired, and received from the hands of
+Kosciusko the charge of a portion of his army.
+
+The patriots had risen in the north of Poland, to which part
+Kosciusko first directed his steps. Anxious to begin his campaign
+with an action of vigor, he marched rapidly toward Cracow, which
+town he entered triumphantly on March 24, 1794. He forthwith
+published a manifesto against the Russians; and then, at the head of
+only 5,000 men, he marched to meet their army. He encountered, on
+April 4th, 10,000 Russians at a place called Wraclawic, and entirely
+defeated them after a combat of four hours. He returned in triumph
+to Cracow, and shortly afterward marched along the left bank of the
+Vistula to Polaniec, where he established his head-quarters.
+
+Meanwhile the inhabitants of Warsaw, animated by the recital of the
+heroic deeds of their countrymen, had also raised the standard of
+independence, and were successful in driving the Russians from the
+city, after a murderous conflict of three days. In Lithuania and
+Samogitia an equally successful revolution was effected before the
+end of April, while the Polish troops stationed in Volhynia and
+Podolia marched to the reinforcement of Kosciusko.
+
+Thus far fortune seemed to smile upon the cause of Polish
+freedom--the scene was, however, about to change. The undaunted
+Kosciusko, having first organized a national council to conduct the
+affairs of government, once more advanced against the Russians. On
+his march he met a new enemy in the person of the faithless
+Frederick William, of Prussia, who, without having even gone through
+the preliminary of declaring war, had advanced into Poland at the
+head of 40,000 men.
+
+Kosciusko, with but 13,000 men, attacked the Prussian army on June
+8th, at Szcekociny. The battle was long and bloody; at length,
+overwhelmed by numbers, he was obliged to retreat toward Warsaw.
+This he effected in so able a manner that his enemies did not dare
+to harass him in his march; and he effectually covered the capital
+and maintained his position for two months against vigorous and
+continued attacks. Immediately after this reverse the Polish
+general, Zaionczeck, lost the battle of Chelm, and the Governor of
+Cracow had the baseness to deliver the town to the Prussians without
+attempting a defence.
+
+These disasters occasioned disturbances among the disaffected at
+Warsaw, which, however, were put down by the vigor and firmness of
+Kosciusko. On July 13th the forces of the Prussians and Russians,
+amounting to 50,000 men, assembled under the walls of Warsaw, and
+commenced the siege of that city. After six weeks spent before the
+place, and a succession of bloody conflicts, the confederates were
+obliged to raise the siege; but this respite to the Poles was but of
+short duration.
+
+Their enemies increased fearfully in number, while their own
+resources diminished. Austria now determined to assist in the
+annihilation of Poland, and caused a body of her troops to enter
+that kingdom. Nearly at the same moment the Russians ravaged
+Lithuania; and the two corps of the Russian army commanded by
+Suwarof and Fersen, effected their junction in spite of the battle
+of Krupezyce, which the Poles had ventured upon, with doubtful
+issue, against the first of these commanders, on September 16th.
+
+Upon receiving intelligence of these events Kosciusko left Warsaw,
+and placed himself at the head of the Polish army. He was attacked
+by the very superior forces of the confederates on October 10, 1794,
+at a place called Macieiowice, and for many hours supported the
+combat against overwhelming odds. At length he was severely wounded,
+and as he fell, he uttered the prophetic words "_Finis Poloniæ_." It
+is asserted that he had exacted from his followers an oath, not to
+suffer him to fall alive into the hands of the Russians, and that in
+consequence the Polish cavalry, being unable to carry him off,
+inflicted some severe sabre wounds on him and left him for dead on
+the field; a savage fidelity, which we half admire even in
+condemning it. Be this as it may, he was recognized and delivered
+from the plunderers by some Cossack chiefs; and thus was saved from
+death to meet a scarcely less harsh fate--imprisonment in a Russian
+dungeon.
+
+Thomas Wawrzecki became the successor of Kosciusko in the command of
+the army; but with the loss of their heroic leader all hope had
+deserted the breasts of the Poles. They still, however, fought with
+all the obstinacy of despair, and defended the suburb of Warsaw,
+called Praga, with great gallantry. At length this post was wrested
+from them. Warsaw itself capitulated on November 9, 1794; and this
+calamity was followed by the entire dissolution of the Polish army
+on the 18th of the same month.
+
+During this time, Kosciusko remained in prison at St. Petersburg;
+but, at the end of two years, the death of his persecutress, the
+Empress Catharine, released him. One of the first acts of the
+Emperor Paul was to restore him to liberty, and to load him with
+various marks of his favor. Among other gifts of the autocrat was a
+pension, by which, however, the high-spirited patriot would never
+consent to profit. No sooner was he beyond the reach of Russian
+influence than he returned to the donor the instrument by which this
+humiliating favor was conferred. From this period the life of
+Kosciusko was passed in retirement. He went first to England, and
+then to the United States of America. He returned to the Old World
+in 1798, and took up his abode in France, where he divided his time
+between Paris and a country-house he had bought near Fontainebleau.
+While here he received the appropriate present of the sword of John
+Sobieski, which was sent to him by some of his countrymen serving in
+the French armies in Italy, who had found it in the shrine at
+Loretto.
+
+Napoleon, when about to invade Poland in 1807, wished to use the
+name of Kosciusko in order to rally the people of the country round
+his standard. The patriot, aware that no real freedom was to be
+hoped for under such auspices, at once refused to lend himself to
+his wishes. Upon this the emperor forged Kosciusko's signature to an
+address to the Poles, which was distributed throughout the country.
+Nor would he permit the injured person to deny the authenticity of
+this act in any public manner. The real state of the case was,
+however, made known to many through the private representations of
+Kosciusko; but he was never able to publish a formal denial of the
+transaction till after the fall of Napoleon.
+
+When the Russians, in 1814, had penetrated into Champagne, and were
+advancing toward Paris, they were astonished to hear that their
+former adversary was living in retirement in that part of the
+country. The circumstances of this discovery were striking. The
+commune in which Kosciusko lived was subjected to plunder, and among
+the troops thus engaged he observed a Polish regiment. Transported
+with anger, he rushed among them, and thus addressed the officers:
+"When I commanded brave soldiers they never pillaged; and I should
+have punished severely subalterns who allowed of disorders such as
+those which we see around. Still more severely should I have
+punished older officers, who authorized such conduct by their
+culpable neglect." "And who are you," was the general cry, "that you
+dare to speak with such boldness to us?" "I am Kosciusko." The
+effect was electric: the soldiery cast down their arms, prostrated
+themselves at his feet, and cast dust upon their heads according to
+a national usage, supplicating his forgiveness for the fault which
+they had committed. For twenty years the name of Kosciusko had not
+been heard in Poland save as that of an exile; yet it still retained
+its ancient power over Polish hearts; a power never used but for
+some good and generous end.
+
+The Emperor Alexander honored him with a long interview, and offered
+him an asylum in his own country. But nothing could induce Kosciusko
+again to see his unfortunate native land. In 1815 he retired to
+Soleure, in Switzerland; where he died, October 16, 1817, in
+consequence of an injury received by a fall from his horse. Not long
+before he had abolished slavery upon his Polish estate, and declared
+all his serfs entirely free, by a deed registered and executed with
+every formality that could insure the full performance of his
+intention. The mortal remains of Kosciusko were removed to Poland at
+the expense of Alexander, and have found a fitting place of rest in
+the cathedral of Cracow, between those of his companions in arms,
+Joseph Poniatowski, and the greatest of Polish warriors, John
+Sobieski.
+
+
+
+
+MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE[4]
+
+         [Footnote 4: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By WILLIAM F. PECK
+
+(1757-1834)
+
+[Illustration: Marquis de la Fayette.]
+
+
+Marie Jean Paul Roch Yves Gilbert Motier, Marquis de la Fayette,[5]
+one of the most celebrated men that France ever produced, was born
+at Chavaignac, in Auvergne, on September 6, 1757, of a noble family,
+with a long line of illustrious ancestors. Left an orphan at the age
+of thirteen, he married, three years later, his cousin Anastasie,
+Countess de Noailles. Inspired from the earliest age with a love of
+freedom and aversion to constraint, the impulses of childhood became
+the daydreams of youth and the realities of maturer life. Filled
+with enthusiastic sympathy for the struggling colonies of America in
+their contest with Great Britain, he offered his services to the
+United States, and, though his enterprise was forbidden by the
+French Government, hired a vessel, sailed for this country, landed
+at Charleston in April, 1777, and proceeded to Philadelphia. His
+advances having been treated by Congress with some coldness, by
+reason of the incessant application of other foreigners for
+commissions, he offered to serve as a volunteer and at his own
+expense. Congress may be excused for having taken him at his word;
+on July 31st it appointed him major-general, without pay the titular
+honor, which carried with it no command, being, perhaps, the highest
+ever given in America to a young man of nineteen years. Having
+accepted the cordial invitation of General Washington, the
+commander-in-chief, to live at his head-quarters and to serve on his
+staff, Lafayette was severely wounded in the leg at the battle of
+the Brandywine, on September 11th, and the intrepidity he displayed
+in that engagement was equalled by the fortitude that he evinced
+during the following winter, in which he shared the privations of
+the American army in the wretched camp at Valley Forge. His fidelity
+to Washington at this time, when the latter was maligned by secret
+foes and conspired against by Conway's cabal, cemented the
+friendship between those great men. Lafayette was soon afterward
+detached to take command of an expedition that was to set out from
+Albany, cross Lake Champlain on the ice, and invade Canada; but, on
+arriving at the intended starting-point, and finding that no
+adequate preparations had been made, he refused to repeat the
+unfortunate experiment of Montgomery and Arnold of two years before,
+and waited for suitable supplies to be sent to him before setting
+out. These came not, the ice melted in March, and he returned to
+Valley Forge, with the thanks of Congress for his forbearance in
+abstaining from risking the loss of an army in order to acquire
+personal glory. France having declared war against England, May 2,
+1778, and at the same time effected an alliance with the colonies,
+Lafayette returned home in January, 1779; on his arrival at Paris he
+was lionized and fêted, and during his stay there he received from
+the United States Congress a sword with massive gold handle and
+mounting, presented to him in appreciation of his services and
+particularly of his gallantry at the battle of Monmouth, on June
+28th, in the preceding year. The high reputation that he had
+acquired in America increased his influence at home to such a degree
+that he was able to accomplish the object of his mission and procure
+money and troops from the ministry of war. These followed him to
+this country in the following year, but little was accomplished
+thereby, D'Estaing, the commander of the fleet, being blockaded in
+the harbor of Newport, and Washington being unwilling to undertake
+the contemplated attack on New York, even with the assistance of the
+French military force, without naval co-operation. In February,
+1781, Lafayette was sent with a division into Virginia, where he
+soon found himself arrayed against the British general, Lord
+Cornwallis. That distinguished officer, the best, perhaps, of all on
+that side of the conflict, expected to make short work of his
+youthful antagonist, but Lafayette, who had learned from Washington
+the art of skilful retreat combined with cautious advance,
+succeeded, after a long series of skirmishes, in shutting Cornwallis
+up in Yorktown. In September, the French fleet, under the Count de
+Grasse, appeared and landed a force of 3,000 men under the Marquis
+de St. Simon. Lafayette was urged to make the assault at once and
+gain the glory of an important capture, but a feeling of honor,
+combined possibly with prudential considerations, impelled him to
+wait for the arrival of the main allied army under Washington and
+Rochambeau. They came a fortnight later, the investment was
+regularly made, and on October 14th Lafayette successfully led the
+Americans to the assault of one of the redoubts, while another was
+taken by the French under the Baron de Viomesnil. The surrender of
+Cornwallis, with his army of 7,000, took place on the 19th, which
+ended, practically, the American war of independence, though the
+final treaty of peace was not signed till January 20, 1783, the
+first knowledge of which came to Congress by a letter from
+Lafayette, who had returned to Europe in the meantime. Revisiting
+the United States in 1784, he was treated with great consideration
+by his old comrades in arms, and the next year he travelled through
+Russia, Austria, and Prussia, in the last of which he attended the
+military reviews of Frederick the Great in company with that
+renowned soldier.
+
+         [Footnote 5: The condensed form of the name, when used apart
+         from the title, is preferable to the open, for, though he
+         employed the conventional style, De La Fayette, up to the
+         time of the French Revolution, he then abandoned it, and
+         always afterward wrote it as one word, Lafayette, which is
+         now the family name.]
+
+From this time Lafayette's history is bound up with that of his
+country. Beginning by formulating plans for meliorating the
+condition of the slaves on his plantation in French Guiana, his
+philanthropic thoughts soon turned homeward. He saw France groaning
+under oppression and the people suffering from a thousand antiquated
+abuses. Some of these he succeeded in mitigating, in his capacity of
+member of the Assembly of the Notables, in 1787, but, as nothing of
+permanent value was accomplished by that body, he urged the
+convocation of the States General. In this assemblage, which met at
+Versailles, on May 4, 1789, he sat at first among the nobility, but
+when the deputies of the people declared themselves to be the
+National Assembly--afterward called the Constituent Assembly--he was
+one of the earliest of his order to join them and was elected one of
+the vice-presidents. On July 14th the Bastille was taken by the mob,
+and on the following day Lafayette was chosen commandant of the
+National Guard of Paris; an irregular body, partly military, partly
+police, having no connection with the royal army and in full
+sympathy with the people, from which its ranks were filled. On the
+17th King Louis XVI. came into the city, where he was received by
+the populace with the liveliest expressions of attachment and
+escorted to the Hôtel de Ville, where Lafayette and Mayor Bailly
+awaited him at the foot of the staircase, up which he passed under
+an arch of steel formed by the uplifted swords of the members of the
+Municipal Council. Bailly offered to the king a tricolor cockade,
+which had been recently adopted as the national emblem, Lafayette,
+in devising it, having added white, the Bourbon color, to the red
+and blue that were the colors of Paris, to show the fidelity of the
+people to the institution of royalty. The king accepted the badge,
+pinned it to his breast, appeared with it on the balcony before the
+vast throng, and returned to Versailles with the feeling, on his
+part and that of others, that the reconciliation between all parties
+was complete and that the era of popular government had begun.
+Instead of that, the troubles continually increased, and Lafayette
+was placed in a most trying position, equally opposed to the
+encroachments of the destructionists and to the intrigues of the
+court, and longing as eagerly for the retention of the monarchy as
+for the establishment of the constitution. The brutal murder of
+Foulon, the superintendent of the revenue, and of his son-in-law
+Berthier, who were torn in pieces by the enraged populace on the
+22d, in spite of the commands, entreaties, and even tears of
+Lafayette, so disgusted him that he resigned his command, and
+resumed it only when the sixty districts of Paris agreed to support
+him in his efforts to maintain order. On October 5th a mob of
+several thousand women set out from Paris to march to Versailles,
+with vague ideas of extorting from the National Assembly the passage
+of laws that should remove all distresses, of obtaining in some way
+a supply of food that should relieve the immediate needs of the
+capital, and of bringing back with them the royal family. The
+National Guard were urgent to accompany the women, partly from a
+desire to protect them in case of a possible collision with the
+royal troops, but still more to bring on a conflict with a regiment
+lately brought from the frontier, and to exterminate the body-guard
+of the king, the members of which had, at a supper given a few
+nights before, been so indiscreet as to trample the tricolor under
+their feet and pin the white cockade to their lapels. Lafayette did
+all in his power to prevent the march of the National Guard, sitting
+on his horse for eight hours in their midst, and refusing all their
+entreaties to give the word of command, till the Municipal Council
+finally issued the order and the troops set forth. Arrived at
+Versailles he posted one of his regiments in different parts of the
+palace, to protect it in case it were really attacked by rioters,
+and then, in the early morning, repairing to his head-quarters in an
+adjoining street, he threw himself on a bed, for a short season of
+necessary repose. Monarchical writers generally have reproached him
+for this act, calling it his "fatal sleep," the source of unnumbered
+woes, the beginning of the downfall; but it is difficult to see
+wherein he can justly be blamed for yielding, wearied out with
+fatigue, to the imperative demand of nature, after providing as far
+as possible for the preservation of order. Awakened in a few minutes
+by the report that the worst had happened, he hurried to the scene
+and found that the mob, having broken down the iron railings of the
+courtyard, had invaded the palace and massacred two of the
+body-guard, and that the lives of the king and queen were in instant
+peril. With characteristic courage, activity, and address he
+prevented the further effusion of blood, and the entire royal
+family, together with the Assembly, migrated to Paris the same day,
+escorted by the citizen soldiers and a turbulent mob both male and
+female. July 14, 1790, was memorable for the Oath of Federation,
+taken in the Champ de Mars, with imposing ceremonies, upon a
+platform of earth raised by the voluntary labors of all the
+citizens. Lafayette, as representative of the nation, and
+particularly of the militia, was the first to take the oath to be
+faithful to the law and the king and to support the constitution
+then under consideration by the Assembly. With a shout of
+affirmation from all of the National Guard, the taking of the entire
+oath by the president of the Assembly and the king, followed by a
+roar of assent from nearly half a million of spectators, and the
+joyful spreading of the news throughout the country by prearranged
+signals, the dream of peace and harmony came back again, as bright
+and as fleeting as the year before. Three days later the National
+Guard of France, outside of the city, united in an address to
+Lafayette, expressive of their confidence in his ability and his
+patriotism, and regretting their inability to serve under him, for,
+by the terms of a law proposed by himself, the commander of the
+militia of Paris was to have no authority over other troops. In
+September the municipality made a strong appeal to him to revoke his
+declaration that he would accept no pay or salary or indemnity of
+any kind, but he refused fixedly, saying that his fortune was
+considerable, that it had sufficed for two revolutions and that it
+would be devoted to a third, if one should arise, for the benefit of
+the people. By the death of Mirabeau, April 2, 1791, the last chance
+of a compromise between the court party and the radicals was taken
+away. Two weeks later the royal family attempted to leave the
+Tuileries for St. Cloud, in order to pass the Easter holidays there
+and to hear mass in the royal chapel; but the populace blocked the
+way, and even a portion of the National Guard, in a state of
+semi-mutiny, threatened to interfere if the other battalions fired
+on the people. This, nevertheless, Lafayette offered to do, and to
+force a passage at all hazards, but the king positively forbade the
+shedding of blood on his account, and resumed his virtual
+imprisonment in the palace. Lafayette was so chagrined by the
+seditious behavior of his troops that he again threw down his
+commission, whereupon an extraordinary revulsion of feeling took
+place; the municipality and the citizens were terror-stricken lest
+universal anarchy should ensue, and even the National Guard,
+repentant of their disgraceful conduct, cast themselves at the feet
+of their general, joining their voices to those of others in
+entreating him to resume his office, which, after three days, he
+consented to do, upon promise of obedience in the future.
+
+[Illustration: The Arch of Steel.]
+
+This was the meridian of Lafayette's career, when his popularity and
+his influence were at their height. Power we can hardly call it, for
+that implies some voluntary deed of assumption, and he always acted
+in obedience to others, to some authority constituted at least under
+the forms of law, or, in the absence of that, to the sovereign
+people. From this time difficulties thickened around him and he was
+constantly environed by suspicion and by intrigues of all kinds
+against his character and his life, but he never swerved from the
+line of his duty. Not one of the political parties gave him its
+entire confidence, and each in turn conspired against him, only to
+be baffled by the underlying conviction, on the part of the masses,
+of his supreme patriotism and integrity. After the flight of the
+king and his family, on June 20th, Lafayette was violently denounced
+in the Jacobin club as a friend to royalty, and accused of having
+assisted in the evasion; but the attempt to proscribe him in the
+Assembly failed utterly, and that body appointed six commissioners
+to protect him from the sudden fury of the people. The royal
+fugitives having been stopped at Varennes and brought back to the
+Tuileries on the 25th, he saved them, by his personal efforts, from
+being torn in pieces by the mob, but was compelled to guard them
+much more strictly than before. On July 17th a disorderly assemblage
+gathered in the Champ de Mars to petition for the overthrow of the
+monarchy, and, in the tumult that ensued on the appearance of the
+troops, Lafayette ordered a volley of musketry, whereby the rioters
+were dispersed with a loss of several killed and wounded, but
+whereby, also, while that act of firmness elicited commendation from
+all lovers of order, occasion was given for further intrigues on the
+part of his enemies and the shattering of his influence among the
+lower classes. A momentary gleam of sunshine broke forth in
+September, when, the king having accepted the new constitution,
+Lafayette took advantage of the general state of good feeling
+thereby produced to propose a comprehensive act of amnesty for all
+offences committed on either side during the revolution, which was
+passed by the Constituent Assembly just before its final adjournment
+on the 30th. On that day he resigned, permanently, the command of
+the National Guard, and retired to his estate at Chavaignac, being
+followed by the most gratifying testimonials of public regard, among
+them a sword and a marble statue of Washington, presented by the
+city of Paris, and a sword cast from one of the bolts of the
+Bastille, given by his old soldiers. Contrary to his personal
+wishes, his friends and his patriotism persuaded him, in November,
+to stand as a candidate for the mayoralty of Paris, with the result
+that might have been foreseen, for Pétion, being supported both by
+the Jacobins and by the court party, was elected by a large
+majority. This defeat did not prevent Lafayette's appointment, a
+month later, to the command of one of the three armies formed to
+defend the frontier against an expected invasion of the Austrians,
+the rank of lieutenant-general being given to him, with the exalted
+honor of marshal of France. War was declared against Austria, April
+20, 1792, and hostilities began, but even the active service in
+which he was engaged could not keep his thoughts from the political
+condition of the country, and on June 16th he wrote to the
+Legislative Assembly, which had succeeded the Constituent in the
+previous autumn, a letter in which he pointed out the dangers that
+menaced the nation and denounced the Jacobins as the faction whose
+growing power was full of peril to the state. Four days later the
+mob invaded the Tuileries and passed riotously through all the
+rooms, insulting in the grossest manner the royal family, who were
+compelled to stand before them and undergo this humiliation for
+three hours. On hearing of this event Lafayette hurried from his
+camp and appeared before the Assembly, entreating the punishment of
+the instigators of the outrage. His sublime audacity in thus
+opposing his own personality to the machinations of his enemies, and
+that, too, before a body already irritated by his unasked advice,
+paralyzed the fury of his adversaries, while his eloquence charmed
+the hearts of his hearers; but all was in vain, and the only result
+of this heroic action was that a decree of accusation was brought in
+against him, which was rejected by a vote of 406 to 224. Upon the
+massacre of the Swiss Guards, on August 10th, followed by the actual
+deposition and imprisonment of the king, Lafayette sounded his army
+to ascertain if they would march to Paris in defence of
+constitutional government, but he found them vacillating and
+untrustworthy. His own dismissal from command came soon after:
+orders were sent for his arrest, and nothing remained for him but
+flight.
+
+On August 19th he left the army and attempted to pass through
+Belgium on his way to England, but he was captured by Austrian
+soldiers near the frontier. He protested that he no longer held rank
+as an officer in the army and should be considered as a private
+citizen; but his rights were not respected in either capacity, for
+he was not treated as a prisoner of war neither was he arraigned as
+a criminal. On the contrary, without any charges being preferred
+against him, and without the formality of a trial of any kind, he
+was immediately thrown into prison and was detained in various
+Belgian, Prussian, and Austrian jails and fortresses for more than
+five years, the last three being passed in close confinement at
+Olmutz. An unsuccessful attempt at escape increased the severity of
+his detention, and he nearly lost his life through the hardships and
+privations that he endured, till his wife and daughters came, in
+1795, and voluntarily shared his incarceration. The only reason for
+the savage treatment that he received, unjustified by any forms of
+international, of military, or of criminal law, seems to have lain
+in the fact that he had been a member of the National Assembly and
+prominent in the constitutional struggle for liberty. A feeling of
+revenge, as mean as it was groundless--for he had done everything in
+his power to protect the dignity as well as the life of Marie
+Antoinette, the sister of the Austrian emperor--joined with a fear
+that other peoples might follow the lead of the French and overthrow
+monarchical institutions unless deterred by some world-shocking
+example, formed the mainspring of this atrocious procedure. Efforts
+were made in this country and in England to procure the release of
+the prisoner, but no governmental action was taken in that
+direction, the United States Congress declining to pass a resolution
+to that effect, so that President Washington was left alone in his
+unceasing attempts, by instructions to our ministers abroad and by a
+personal letter to the emperor, to repay some of the debt that he
+and the whole country owed to our adopted citizen. It was not till
+the successes of the French republican armies enabled General
+Bonaparte, at the instance of the Directory, to insist upon the
+liberation of Lafayette as one of the conditions of the treaty of
+Campo Formio, that he was discharged on September 19, 1797, the
+Austrian Government pretending that this was done out of regard for
+the United States of America. Passing into Denmark and Holland he
+resided in those countries for two years, when he returned to France
+only to receive from Bonaparte a significant message recommending to
+him a very quiet life, a piece of advice which, as it accorded with
+his own desires, he followed, settling down at Lagrange, an estate
+inherited by his wife, as his own property had been confiscated by
+the National Convention, which had succeeded the Legislative
+Assembly. True to the principles that he had always entertained, he
+cast his vote, in 1802, with less than nine thousand others, and in
+opposition to the suffrages of more than three-and-a-half millions,
+against the decree to make Bonaparte consul for life, writing after
+his name on the polling register the statement that he could not
+vote for such a measure till public freedom was sufficiently
+guaranteed. This insured the continued displeasure of the military
+despot, who revenged himself by refusing to Lafayette's only son,
+George Washington, the promotion that he had earned by his brilliant
+exploits in the army. President Jefferson's offer in 1803, of the
+governorship of the province of Louisiana, just after its purchase
+from France, was rejected by Lafayette, who continued in his
+retirement through the time of the empire and after the first
+restoration of the Bourbons, till the return from Elba, in March,
+1815, of Napoleon, who used every exertion to conciliate him and win
+his support. All these overtures he declined, but, on the other
+hand, accepted an election to the popular branch of the Legislature,
+of which he was chosen vice-president. After the battle of Waterloo,
+on June 18th, Napoleon returned to Paris and proposed to his council
+the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies and the assumption of
+absolutely dictatorial power; a desperate project which was
+frustrated only by the alertness, vigor, and energy of Lafayette,
+whose eloquent appeals induced the Legislature to compel the final
+abdication of the emperor, under the alternative threat of
+forfeiture and expulsion. Five commissioners, with Lafayette at the
+head, appointed by the chambers, proceeded to the head-quarters of
+the allied sovereigns, at Haguenau, to treat for peace; but, while
+negotiations were pending, the foreign armies pushed on toward the
+capital, and he returned on July 3d, to find that Paris had
+capitulated and was at the mercy of the conquerors, who dictated
+their own terms, forcibly dissolved the Corps Législatif, and
+replaced Louis XVIII. on the throne. Lafayette retired to Lagrange,
+but was again elected, in 1817, a deputy, in spite of the strenuous
+opposition of the Government, and exerted his influence in favor of
+liberal measures, though with indifferent success. In 1824, on the
+invitation of President Monroe, he revisited this country, travelled
+through every State, was received with the highest honors by
+Congress (which voted him $200,000 and a township of land for his
+services), by legislatures, by colleges, by corporations of cities,
+by societies of all kinds by his surviving comrades of the
+revolution, and by the whole nation; took part in the laying of the
+corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument June 17, 1825, and sailed
+for home in September, on the United States frigate Brandywine,
+which had been put at his disposal by the Government. Soon after his
+return to France he was re-elected to the Corps Législatif, and
+served as a member for most of the remainder of his life. The stupid
+tyranny of King Charles X. having caused an outbreak of the
+Parisians in July, 1830, Lafayette unhesitatingly espoused the
+popular cause, and, though nearly seventy-three years old, accepted
+the command of the National Guard; after a conflict of three days
+the royal troops gave way, the king abdicated, to be succeeded by
+the Duke of Orleans as King Louis Philippe, and Lafayette had the
+satisfaction of contributing largely to the establishment of what he
+had advocated so strongly forty years before--a constitutional
+monarchy. He died at his home, in the country, on May 20, 1834, but
+his remains were taken to Paris for interment, and as the funeral
+train passed through the streets the lamentations on every hand
+attested the affection and the sorrow of the people. Few men have
+lived who present a figure so attractive to the eye of the student;
+fewer still, so prominent on the theatre of history, who will bear,
+with so little possibility of censure, the closest scrutiny, the
+severest judgment. His actions were visible to all the world, his
+motives were transparent, his sentiments were unconcealed, his life
+was blameless. To the physical endowments of dignity of person and
+resistless charm of manner he added all desirable qualities of head
+and heart, a dauntless courage, an enthusiasm beautiful and yet
+consistent, a sublime patriotism, a disinterested generosity. If,
+with all these, he seems to have failed of achieving the highest
+success, it was because not of what he lacked but of what he
+possessed in the fullest degree, a lofty integrity that forbade him
+to pander to the passions of the mob, a supreme regard for the
+rights of the community and of the individual. He might have
+snatched the sovereign power, but in doing it he would have lost his
+self-respect. In place, then, of glittering success, he obtained the
+quiet admiration of mankind and the loving gratitude of two nations.
+
+[Signature: William F. Peck.]
+
+
+
+
+CHARLOTTE CORDAY[6]
+
+         [Footnote 6: Copyright. 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By OLIVER OPTIC
+
+(1768-1793)
+
+[Illustration: A guillotine.]
+
+
+The despotism of Louis XIV. and the exhaustion of the finances by his
+wars and his reckless extravagance had reduced France to a very
+unhappy condition. His son, the Grand-Dauphin, died four years before
+his father, and his grandson, the Duke of Burgundy, a year later.
+Louis the Great was therefore succeeded by his great-grandson, Louis
+XV. During this reign the nation continued on the decline. He was
+followed by his grandson, Louis XVI., a better man than his immediate
+predecessor, but too weak to carry out the reforms necessary to
+restore the prosperity of the nation. Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu,
+and many other writers, as well as the influence of the American
+Revolution, had fostered democratic ideas among the people, for the
+government was reeking with abuses.
+
+The parliament had not assembled for three-quarters of a century;
+but representatives of the people met in 1789, in spite of the
+opposition of the king. The extreme of license followed the extreme
+of absolutism. The king opposed the Constituent Assembly, for this
+body changed its name several times, till the political conflict
+ended in the death by the guillotine of Louis XVI., and later by the
+execution of his queen, Marie Antoinette. For every two hundred and
+fifty of the gross population there was a member of the nobility who
+was exempted from the payment of any land tax, though this kind of
+property was almost exclusively in their possession, and from many
+other taxes and burdens, which all the more heavily weighed down
+the great body of the people. The latter had a long list of genuine
+grievances which the king and his advisers refused to remedy.
+
+The revolution became an accomplished fact in the capture and
+destruction of the Bastille, on July 14, 1789, which day is still
+celebrated as a national holiday in France. It had been for hundreds
+of years a prison for political offenders, and was regarded by the
+people as the principal emblem and instrument of tyranny. The
+population became as intemperate as their rulers had been, thousands
+perished by the guillotine, and the reign of terror was established.
+The National Convention proclaimed a republic; but this body was
+divided by conflicting opinions, and had not the power to inaugurate
+their ideal government. Blood flowed in rivers, and the reaction was
+infinitely more terrible than the tyranny which had produced it.
+
+The Convention was divided into at least four parties, though the
+lines which separated them were not very clearly defined. The
+Jacobins were the most prominent, and the most radical. It had its
+origin in the Jacobin Club, formed in Versailles, taking its name
+from a convent in which it met. This organization soon spread
+through its branches all over France, and its party was the most
+violent and blood-thirsty in the convention. Danton, Robespierre,
+Marat, Desmoulins, and other desperate leaders were of this faction.
+
+The Girondists were next in numbers and influence. They were the
+moderate republicans of the time, though at first they were inclined
+to accept the constitution, and favor a limited monarchy. Its name
+came from the earliest leaders of the party who were representatives
+from the department of the Gironde. Its members labored to check the
+violence and bloodshed of the times, and might be called the
+respectable party of the period. Unfortunately they were in the
+minority, and all the members of the party in the Convention who did
+not escape, were arrested, convicted, and guillotined.
+
+The Montagnards (mountaineers) or Montagne (Mountain) was the term
+applied to the Democrats holding the most extreme views, though its
+members were also Jacobins and Cordeliers. Among them were the most
+blood-thirsty, unreasonable, and intolerant men of the time, for
+Danton, Robespierre, Marat, St. Just, and others of that stamp,
+affiliated with them. They took their name from the fact that they
+were grouped together in the uppermost seats of the chamber of the
+Convention. The Cordeliers was hardly more than another name for a
+club of the same men, so called from the chapel of a Franciscan
+monastery where they held their meetings.
+
+[Illustration: Charlotte Corday and Marat.]
+
+Jean Paul Marat was one of the most prominent personages of the
+Revolution, whose infamy will continue to be perpetuated down to
+generations yet to come, with other of his red-handed associates. He
+was a Frenchman, though he spent considerable time in Holland and
+Great Britain, where he practised medicine, having studied the
+profession at Bordeaux. He made some reputation as a political
+writer, and in Edinburgh obtained a degree. It is believed that he
+was convicted for stealing, and sentenced to five years imprisonment
+at Oxford under several _aliases_. Perhaps he was sincere in his
+opinions, and he threw himself vigorously into the work of the
+Revolution in Paris, issuing inflammatory pamphlets, which he caused
+to be printed and circulated secretly. He established an infamous
+journal, attacking the king and all his supporters, and especially
+the Girondists, whose moderation disgusted him. His virulence caused
+him to be intensely hated, and twice he was compelled to flee to
+London, and once to hide in the sewers. In the latter he contracted
+a loathsome disease of the skin which soon began to eat away his
+life; and his sufferings from it intensified his zeal and his
+hatred.
+
+Marat was elected to the Convention as a delegate from Paris.
+Perhaps he was to a greater degree responsible for the September
+massacre than any other man. While he was dying of his malady he was
+urging on his fanatical measures, and declared that most of the
+members of the Convention, Mirabeau first, ought to be executed. His
+most virulent hatred was directed against the Girondists, whose
+execution he advocated with all the venom of his nature. Though he
+could write only when seated in a bath, he continued to hurl his
+invectives against them, impatient for the guillotine to do its gory
+work upon them.
+
+The avenger was at hand. Charlotte Corday d'Armont was the
+granddaughter of Corneille, the great tragic poet of France. Though
+of noble descent, she was born in a cottage, for her father was a
+country gentleman so poor that he could not support his family. His
+daughters worked in the fields like the peasants, till he was
+compelled to abandon them. Then they obtained admission to a convent
+in Caen, where they were received on account of their birth and
+their poverty. The library furnished Charlotte abundant reading
+matter, and she read works on philosophy, though she also rather
+inflated her imagination by the perusal of romances, which had some
+influence on her after life.
+
+When monasteries and convents were abolished, she was turned loose
+upon the world; but her aunt, as poor almost as her father, took the
+young woman, now nineteen years old, to her home in Caen. Charlotte
+had developed into a beautiful girl, rather tall, honest, and
+innocent. She had imbibed republican sentiments from her father in
+spite of his nobility, and Caen was the head-quarters of the
+Girondists. She was familiar with the details of the struggle
+between the Jacobins and the Girondists, and they inspired her with
+an intense feeling against the persecutors of her people, as she
+regarded the latter. The members of that party who had been driven
+from Paris instructed her. She was a woman; but if she had been a
+queen she had the nerve to rule a nation and fight its battles.
+
+A tremendous purpose took possession of her being. It was not
+prompted by the spirit of revenge. She was mistaken, but she
+believed that the removal of Marat was the remedy for the evils of
+the time; and this became the work of her life, upon which she
+entered, fully conscious that her path ended at an ignominious
+grave. She had an admirer in a young man by the name of Franquelin,
+and though she favored him she sacrificed her attachment to what she
+regarded as a lofty, even a sublime duty. She had the means to
+proceed to Paris and she went by the coach. She deceived her aunt,
+her father, and her sisters with the statement that she was going to
+England in search of remunerative employment. She went to a hotel in
+the great city which had been recommended to her in Caen.
+
+A friend had given her a letter of recommendation to Duperret, a
+Girondist deputy, by the aid of which she hoped to get into the
+presence of Marat. She had arranged a plan for the assassination of
+the brawling fanatic, and it was to take place at the celebration of
+the anniversary of the destruction of the Bastille, July 14th, on
+the Champ de Mars. She desired to do the deed as publicly as
+possible, not to make it sensational, but in order to produce the
+stronger impression upon the minds of the people. The postponement
+of the celebration, for the suppression of the rebellion among the
+Vendeans, prevented the execution of her first plan, and she then
+decided to strike down her victim in his seat at the "summit of the
+mountain," in the midst of the victim's accomplices. Then she
+learned that Marat was confined to his lodgings by his malady. She
+promptly determined to confront him in his own home.
+
+She wrote a note to him, professing to be a sufferer at the hands of
+the Girondists, asking for an appointment at his house. He made it,
+but was unable to keep it. She wrote another note, and then went to
+the house in the Rue de l'École de Médecine, now a part of the
+Boulevard St. Germain. The woman with whom Marat lived refused to
+admit her, and she crowded up a short stairway. Her intended victim
+heard the altercation, and suspecting it was the person who had sent
+him two notes, he called out to Catherine Everard to admit her.
+Charlotte had visited the Palais Royal and purchased a knife, which
+was concealed in her bosom in readiness to do the deed.
+
+Marat, though at the height of his pernicious influence, lived in
+mean and squalid apartments, in a sort of pride of poverty as "the
+friend of the people." In spite of his disease, which compelled him
+to work in a bath, he was always busy. The room was littered with
+papers and pamphlets. He was only five feet in height, with a
+naturally disagreeable face, increased by his malady. At the very
+time his visitor entered his den, he was making out on a board
+before him a list of Girondists to be executed. She would not look
+at him, but she told him a story she had invented, and gave him the
+names of Girondist refugees at Caen; to which he replied as he wrote
+them down, that "they should have the guillotine before they were a
+week older."
+
+At these words, as though they had steeled her arm, she drew the
+knife from her bosom, and with superhuman power, plunged it to the
+hilt and to the heart of Marat. He called for help and then expired.
+Assistance came, and the house was thronged with National Guards and
+policemen. They were necessary to save the murderess from the fury
+of those who forced their way into the house. She was arrested, and
+conveyed in the same carriage in which she had come to the
+Conciergerie. All Paris groaned and howled.
+
+She had the form of a trial, and the guillotine quickly followed it.
+Her fortitude did not forsake her at any time, and she died as
+firmly as any martyr ever went to the stake. Her beauty and her
+heroism excited the sympathy of the crowd, but they could not save
+her. She was a mistaken heroine, but her courage and fortitude were
+sublime.
+
+[Signature: William S. Adams.]
+
+
+
+
+MADAME ROLAND[7]
+
+         [Footnote 7: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
+
+(1754-1793)
+
+[Illustration: Madame Roland.]
+
+
+France has produced many remarkable women; perhaps no other country
+can boast such an array of illustrious names; they shine from the
+pages of French history like fixed stars from the firmament. Among
+them, down the long vista of a hundred years, brilliant and
+beautiful, shines the name of Madame Roland, the spirit of the great
+French Revolution personified.
+
+Striking beauty, great genius, and wonderful courage in the hour of
+martyrdom, rendered this woman an unusual character in an unusual
+epoch. Surrounded by deceit, she was honest and fearless. In the
+midst of immorality and license, she was pure, and brave enough to
+resist temptation which came from without and from within, and she
+went to the scaffold with an untarnished name and soul.
+
+Manon Philipon, as Madame Roland was known in her childhood, was
+born in Paris in the year 1754. Her father was a worker in enamel,
+who thrived well enough in his art when he was content to toil at
+it, but a restless spirit of speculation led him into ventures which
+brought him neither profit nor renown.
+
+Manon's beauty was a direct inheritance from both father and mother.
+Gratien Philipon was a handsome man, and vain and frivolous as he
+was handsome; but his beautiful wife was serious-minded, and much
+the superior of her husband in intellect as well as morals. Of seven
+children born to this couple, only one lived--Manon, the subject of
+our sketch--who inherited the combined beauty of both parents, with
+the rectitude and high ideals of the mother. But there lies no
+explanation of inheritance from either father or mother to make us
+understand how the child of these common people became at nine years
+of age a student of Plutarch, Tasso, and Voltaire, and a philosopher
+at the age of eleven. It requires a deeper law than that of heredity
+to explain these things.
+
+At ten, Manon developed a strongly religious tendency, which was
+fostered, no doubt, by daily studying the "Lives of the Saints."
+While reading the accounts of martyrs who had died at the stake
+rather than resign their faith, the child often regretted that she
+had not lived in those "good old days," so happy a thing it seemed
+to her to die for one's principles. This privilege was granted her
+in after-years, strangely enough; and she proved as courageous in
+reality as she had in childhood imagined herself capable of being
+under similar circumstances.
+
+Manon's religious feelings were culminated by a request made to her
+mother, in a paroxysm of tears, that she might be placed in a
+convent to prepare herself for her first communion; accordingly, she
+was taken to the Convent of the "Sisters of the Congregation" in
+May, 1765, when she was eleven years old. Side by side with this
+nunnery, where the precocious child passed one of the happiest
+epochs of her life, stood the prison which was to immure her in
+later years. Should such a circumstance and situation be unfolded in
+the pages of fiction, we would call it strained and unnatural.
+
+During the year Manon passed in the convent, she made the
+acquaintance of two sisters, Henrietta and Sophie Cannet, who were
+allied to the nobility; and she afterward attributed her facility in
+writing to the correspondence with the younger of these sisters,
+which continued without interruption over more than a decade of
+years. In her memoirs, written under the shadow of the guillotine,
+she says, "In the gloom of a prison, in the midst of political
+storms, how shall I recall to my mind, and how describe, the
+rapture, the tranquillity I enjoyed at that period; but when I
+review the events of my life, I find it difficult to assign to
+circumstances that variety and that plenitude of affection which
+have so strongly marked every point of its duration, and left me so
+clear a remembrance of every place at which I have been."
+
+After she left the convent, she found her passion for reading
+unabated, and as her father's library was limited, she was obliged
+to borrow and hire books; from these she made copious extracts and
+abstracts which formed her valuable habit of reflection upon what
+she had read.
+
+Her first feelings of contempt and bitterness toward the aristocrats
+were roused by the air of condescension which the Cannets exhibited
+to her in her occasional visits to Sophie. They were stupid and
+arrogant people, but they made her realize that the daughter of an
+artisan was not on equal footing with people allied to the nobility,
+albeit she was a prodigy of beauty, learning, and talent, and they
+the dullest of beings.
+
+"I endeavored," she says, "to think with hope that everything was
+right, but my pride told me things were ordered better in a
+republic." So, as early as at the age of fourteen, we find this
+remarkable being philosophizing upon republics, and taking part in
+mind against the evils and injustice fostered by monarchies.
+
+Madame Roland wandered from prescribed creeds, and became a liberal
+in her religious ideas. She has been called an Atheist, but every
+line she writes, and her life of self-sacrifice, disprove this
+assertion. Her "one prayer," to which she says she confined herself,
+is, to my mind, sublime with beautiful and practical religion.
+
+"O Thou who hast placed me on the earth, enable me to fulfil my
+destination in the manner most conformable to the Divine will, and
+most beneficial to my fellow-creatures."
+
+I can imagine no more perfect religious faith, no more complete
+submission to, and acknowledgment of, a Supreme Power than this
+prayer contains. It strikes me as far more devout and respectful
+than the prayers of many people who endeavor to dictate to God and
+direct Him what to do and what not to do, what to bestow and what to
+withhold.
+
+She writes of her religious agitations with great reluctance to
+Sophie Cannet, fearful of disturbing the serenity of her friend's
+convictions; but she continued to conform to her mother's religious
+ideas during that good woman's life, and even afterward she kept up
+the forms of Catholicism for the sake of a valued family servant who
+was devoted to her.
+
+This delicate consideration of the feelings of others has been
+mistaken by some bigoted minds for deceit or vacillation on the part
+of Madame Roland; as if such a being were capable of either.
+
+We owe all our knowledge of her early private life to the voluminous
+correspondence between her and Sophie Cannet; to this friend she
+wrote those long, journal-like letters, in which one young girl
+often pours out the inmost secrets of her heart and soul to another;
+but, unlike the letters of the ordinary girl, Manon's contained
+criticisms of the books she had read, and discussions of
+philosophical subjects, which bear evidence to her wonderful
+precocity of thought and feeling in her "teens."
+
+Originality, unselfishness, genius of the rarest order, are all
+displayed in these letters; already had her mind grasped some great
+truths which it requires the average philosopher half a century to
+discover, when at seventeen, she says, "Man is the epitome of the
+universe. The revolutions of the world without are an image of those
+which take place in his own soul."
+
+Upon the news of the mortal illness of Louis XV., she writes to
+Sophie this strongly humanitarian passage: "Although the obscurity
+of my birth, name, and position seem to preclude me from taking any
+interest in the government, yet the common weal touches me in spite
+of it. My country is something to me, and the love I bear it is
+unquestionable. How could it be otherwise when nothing in the world
+is indifferent to me? A love of humanity unites me to everything
+that breathes. A Caribbean interests me; the fate of a Kaffir goes
+to my heart. Alexander wished for more worlds to conquer. I could
+wish for more to love."
+
+In spite of her philosophy, her seriousness, and her learning,
+however, Manon Philipon was a girl, and a charming one; and we learn
+in her letters to Sophie how she was pestered with lovers of low and
+high degree, during her long maidenhood. I might better say with
+proposals for her hand, since, as we know, French custom does not
+permit the "love-making" which American girls consider their natural
+prerogative.
+
+Manon was so beautiful, brilliant, and magnetic, that when she went
+out to promenade with her father, she was greeted with admiring
+glances and remarks; and from the fruit vender of whom she made
+occasional purchases, and the butcher who served the family with
+joints, to dancing and drawing masters, up along the line to
+merchants, professional, and literary men, she seemed to fascinate
+and attract with no effort on her own part.
+
+Each one in turn asked for her hand and was rejected; and a host of
+others followed, to meet a similar fate, until her father threatened
+to marry her to the first stranger who crossed his portal, whether
+either one wished it or no. She says in her memoirs, "The
+respectable character of my mother, the appearance of some fortune,
+and my being an only child, made the project of matrimony a tempting
+one to a number of persons who were strangers to me. The greater
+part, finding it difficult to obtain an introduction, adopted the
+expedient of writing to my father. These letters were always shown
+to me. I wrote the answers, which my father faithfully copied. I was
+much amused at acting the part of my own father, and dismissed my
+suitors with dignity, leaving no room for resentment or hope. Here
+began to break out those dissensions with my father which lasted
+ever after. He loved and respected commerce, I despised it; and he
+was much concerned at my rejection of suitors who possessed any
+fortune."
+
+After the death of Madame Philipon, which occurred in her daughter's
+twenty-first year, Manon's life at home became almost unbearable.
+Her extreme grief impaired her health, and anxiety and mortification
+were added by the excesses and frivolous extravagances into which
+her father plunged. He formed associations with people of bad
+character, and took to gambling. Manon strove to make herself an
+agreeable companion, and to entertain him at home, but the attempt
+was futile. She filled her lonely hours with study, and with writing
+letters to Sophie. One day a tall, thin gentleman, bald and yellow,
+past forty, and looking older, presented a letter of introduction
+from Miss Cannet.
+
+It was M. Roland, an austere philosopher, of an ancient family, to
+whom Sophie had often referred. Manon admired his intellect and his
+respectability; and when, after some two or three years, he made an
+offer of marriage, she was ready to accept; but M. Philipon bluntly
+and insolently refused his consent, through a strong personal
+dislike which he had conceived for the severe moralist and
+philosopher.
+
+Manon could not marry against her father's wishes, but she could
+leave the home now so distasteful to her. She had saved only a small
+sum from her mother's fortune, amounting to about one hundred
+dollars per year. With this, she retired to the Convent of the
+Congregation, and shut herself up with her books, and received only
+her old friends.
+
+M. Roland, for whose sake she had taken so decisive a step, was far
+from an ardent lover in his conduct at this juncture. He wrote her
+affectionately, but he made no reference to his proposal of marriage
+until six months had passed. Then he came to Paris, had an interview
+through iron gratings, and expressed himself determined to make her
+his wife. Since she had left her father's roof, she was at liberty
+to accept his somewhat tardy proposal, and she emerged from the
+convent to become Madame Roland.
+
+We have seen that M. Roland was not an ardent lover, and it is
+readily understood that this beautiful, intense girl, in the very
+prime of young womanhood, was not in love with him. She felt only
+esteem for his virtues, and admiration for his intellect. But she
+was twenty-five years old, and virtually homeless; of all the score
+of men who had sought her hand in marriage, no one had ever stirred
+her heart, and she married, believing, no doubt, that this cold
+regard and high admiration which the character of M. Roland
+elicited, was all that she could feel for any man.
+
+It was not until the thunders of the Revolution shook the world,
+that her heart awoke to real passion; and even then, in a situation
+where hundreds of women who have professed greater religious fervor,
+have fallen, she conquered herself, and virtually died to protect
+her husband's life.
+
+During the first year of their marriage, the Rolands lived in Paris.
+Manon had imagined a happy association with her friends, the
+Cannets; but her husband was morbidly jealous of these friends, and
+extracted a promise from her that she would see them as little as
+possible. She became his amanuensis and secretary, and scarcely ever
+left his side.
+
+During the next ten years we find her passing the greater part of
+her time in the Clos de la Platière, an ancient and humble
+country-seat belonging to the Roland family. Here, with her taxing
+domestic duties, the exactions of her husband, the care of her child
+Eudora, the tyrannies of her aged mother-in-law, this wonderful
+woman had little opportunity for the exercise of her talents.
+
+It seems strange to think of this beautiful martyr, whose name is a
+synonym for all that is grand and heroic, passing the best years of
+her womanhood in preparing dishes for the appetite of a dyspeptic
+husband, in looking after house-linen, and arranging lessons for a
+child. Matilda Blind says "This affects one with something of the
+ludicrous disproportion of making use of the fires of Etna to fry
+one's eggs by."
+
+Yet Madame Roland performed these and less agreeable duties as
+cheerfully and as perfectly as she had performed her chosen tasks in
+the convent years before. Women doctors were not known in those
+days, but the genius of Madame Roland embraced a knowledge of
+medicine with other things; and she often went three leagues to
+relieve a sick peasant, and was ever ready to sacrifice herself for
+the good of others.
+
+There was very little happiness for her in the companionship of her
+husband. He was twenty-two years her senior, and possessed an
+imperious temper and an exacting nature. But the most ardent wife
+could not have better performed her duty to the most lovable of
+husbands.
+
+Naturally democratic in her feelings and sympathies, Madame Roland
+took the keenest interest in the progress of the Revolution; from
+her quiet retreat she studied its leading members, and when, in
+1791, her husband was chosen deputy to the Constituent Assembly, she
+accompanied him to Paris, and their apartments became the rendezvous
+for such men as Brissot, Buzot, Danton, Robespierre, Pétion, and
+many more, who met to confer with one another and to exchange ideas
+and suggestions. Madame Roland sat apart with her embroidery and
+listened. Of these meetings she speaks thus in her "Memoirs": "Good
+ideas were started and excellent principles maintained; but there
+was no path marked out, no determinate point toward which each
+person should direct his views. Sometimes for very vexation, I could
+have boxed the ears of these philosophers."
+
+Had not her sex precluded this silent spirit of the Girondists from
+taking part in these counsels, if, instead of acting second hand
+through her husband, she could have taken the lead, as her genius,
+perception, honesty, and courage entitled her to do, who knows that
+she might not have averted the disasters which befell the party
+through its dissensions.
+
+In March, 1792, Roland was elected minister of the interior; and
+Madame Roland presided over the establishment that had been
+sumptuously fitted up for Madame Necker. Roland became the idol of
+the patriotic party, and was enchanted with his excellent position.
+He urged upon King Louis XVI., in whom he reposed great faith, the
+necessity of a decree against the priesthood, and the establishment
+of a camp in the suburbs of Paris. Louis demurred, Roland insisted
+in the famous letter written by his wife, and placed in the king's
+hands June 11th. This letter became immensely popular. The Assembly
+ordered it to be printed and copies sent to all departments,
+together with expressions of national regret at the discharge of
+Roland and his friends, which the letter caused. But they were
+recalled to office after the dreadful August 10th.
+
+Twice a week Madame Roland gave a dinner to fifteen of her husband's
+colleagues, with whom he wished to converse. No other lady was
+present. The Girondists were at the apex of society, and Madame
+Roland was the life and impetus of the party. She endeavored to
+infuse its members with her hatred of false pride and old
+prejudices, and with her desire to establish a liberal democracy.
+Always enthusiastic, and vexed with the lack of unity and direct
+purpose in the Assembly, she was over-zealous in some of her
+suggestions.
+
+Among the brilliant men whom she entertained at these dinners, was
+one, young, handsome, elegant, and refined, whose many manly
+qualities woke in her heart that long-delayed passion which a nature
+so ardent must sometime feel. This man was Buzot; and he was as
+irresistibly drawn to this beautiful, brilliant woman as the magnet
+to the steel.
+
+Madame Roland was at this time thirty-eight years old; her brilliant
+color and her open expression made her look much younger, and her
+tall, finely developed form, her splendid eyes and engaging smile,
+charmed and attracted all who came near her. But though domestic
+life and morality were held at the lowest possible value in those
+chaotic days, and each man made a law for himself, Madame Roland
+never wavered in her loyalty and devotion to the man whose name she
+bore. Only through her remarkable letters written to Buzot from her
+prison cell, and never made public till 1863, does the glory and
+intensity of her hopeless passion display itself.
+
+From the very first, Madame Roland had distrusted Danton. It was not
+long before her intuitions proved correct, for Danton soon showed
+his jealousy and dislike of the minister, whom he found too honest
+to tamper with. He feared, too, the penetration, frankness, and
+genius of Roland's wife. Men who saw the insidious, selfish
+qualities of Danton, began to cultivate and conciliate him out of
+fear of his enmity.
+
+Robespierre, whom Madame Roland had at first believed in as an
+honest friend to liberty, became an ally of Danton and Marat, and
+Roland soon realized that it was not the monarchists he had to
+contend against, but the new party headed by these dissenting
+Girondists, who were savage with a thirst for human blood.
+
+The Rolands were accused of trying to establish an aristocracy of
+talent on the ruins of a monarchical aristocracy; their semi-weekly
+dinners were represented as sumptuous feasts where, like a new
+Circe, Madame Roland strove to corrupt the unfortunates who partook
+of her banquets.
+
+She was called before the Convention December 7th, to listen to the
+charges against her; her eloquence won the admiration of even her
+enemies. But her safety was in danger, and she was obliged to sleep
+with a pistol under her pillow for fear of the outrages of
+desperadoes who lurked about her house.
+
+The strife between the two parties grew more bitter, and the
+downfall of Roland had been determined upon by his savage opponents,
+once his fawning friends and colleagues. An attempt was made to
+arrest Roland by six armed men, deputies of the Insurrectionists. He
+replied that he did not recognize their authority, and refused to
+follow them. Madame Roland at once set off for the Tuileries, where
+the Insurrectionists, more cruel and blood-thirsty than the deposed
+Monarchists, were in session. At the door the sentinels forbade her
+to enter. Obliged to return home without having been enabled to
+address the Convention, as she hoped to do, she found that her
+husband had taken refuge in the house of a friend.
+
+She sought him out, embraced him, and returned once more to the
+Tuileries in another vain hope of arousing their former friends to
+resolute action. But she was obliged to return to her apartment in
+the evening, without having accomplished anything. Late that night
+she was torn from her child and her home, and cast into the Prison
+of the Abbaye, from which she was set at liberty a month later, and
+wild with happiness, allowed to reach her own door; but as she
+attempted to enter she was again seized and conveyed to the Prison
+of Sainte Pélagie. The respite had only been given in malice to
+render her second incarceration more bitter.
+
+Under the same roof were murderers and women of the town; and in the
+morning, when the cell-doors were opened, the scum of the earth, as
+one authority tells us, collected in the corridor. On each side of
+this corridor (the only place where the prisoners could take
+exercise) were small cells, and one of these, separated only by thin
+walls from the most depraved beings, whose vile language was
+constantly audible to her ears, this refined and elegant woman was
+forced to occupy. She suffered acutely from this proximity to
+depravity and vulgarity at first; but ere long she transformed the
+vicinity in which her cell was situated "from an inferno to an oasis
+of peace." When she walked in the corridor, where at first she was
+pointed at, abused and reviled, she was now surrounded by wretched
+beings who clung to her skirts and regarded her as a divinity. Her
+sweet voice soothed brawls, her words of courage inspired the most
+hopeless. Everybody loved her, everybody desired her acquittal.
+
+Meantime she was writing her famous "Memoirs," and the touching
+letters to her husband, her child, and to Buzot. After an
+imprisonment of more than six months, she was finally called before
+the judge and the prosecution, and accused of being the wife of
+Roland, the conspirator, the friend of his accomplices. Twenty-one
+Girondists had already been executed, and she could not hope to
+escape. She was condemned to death as guilty of traitorous relations
+with conspirators. She heard the sentence proudly, and replied, "You
+consider me worthy to share the fate of the great men whom you have
+assassinated. I shall try to carry to the scaffold the courage they
+have shown."
+
+Robespierre signed her death-warrant. He had been her friend, guest,
+and correspondent. She had helped him when he was unknown, defended
+him when he was in need of a defender. But he sent her to the
+scaffold; and on November 9, 1793, the tumbril came to convey her to
+the guillotine. It had taken many others on that same day; and now
+her only companion on that fatal ride was a trembling old man named
+La Marche. He wept bitterly, but Madame Roland cheered him with
+words of courage and strength.
+
+When they arrived at the Place de la Concorde, she begged the
+executioner to permit the "etiquette of the scaffold" to be waived,
+and to allow La Marche to die first, that the sight of her death
+might not accentuate his fear and misery. So to the last moment of
+her life she was true to her religion of thoughtfulness for others.
+
+Beautiful, self-possessed, and calm, she stood upon the scaffold in
+the pride of her womanhood, and spoke those last immortal words as
+she lifted her eyes to the statue of Liberty, "O Liberty, how many
+crimes are committed in thy name."
+
+Then the axe fell, and the assassins of the Revolution had added
+another victim to their list. Seven days after this event, M. Roland
+committed suicide by stabbing himself through the heart.
+
+[Signature: Ella Wheeler Wilcox.]
+
+
+
+
+MARIE ANTOINETTE
+
+By Mrs. OCTAVIUS FREIRE OWEN
+
+(1755-1793)
+
+[Illustration: Marie Antoinette.]
+
+
+Maria Theresa, the Empress of Austria, was not highly educated; and
+she was incapable of directing the studies of her children, although
+by precept and example she laid the foundation of characters, all of
+which became more or less remarkable. Marie Antoinette, her youngest
+child, was perhaps the most neglected. She once innocently caused
+the dismissal of her governess, through a confession that all the
+letters and drawings shown to her mother, in proof of her
+improvement, had been previously traced with a pencil. At fifteen
+her knowledge of Italian, studied under Metastasio, was the only
+branch of her education which had been fairly attended to, if we
+except considerable conversance with the "Lives of the Saints" and
+other legendary lore, the favorite fictions of monastic compilers.
+Nature had, nevertheless, done much for the young archduchess; she
+possessed great facility for learning, and was not slow in taking
+advantage of opportunities for improvement when they were afforded.
+In person she was most attractive. "Beaming with freshness," says
+Madame Campan, "she appeared to all eyes more than beautiful. Her
+walk partook at once of the noble character of the princesses of her
+house and of the graces of the French; her eyes were mild, her smile
+lovely. It was impossible to refrain from admiring her aërial
+deportment; her smile was sufficient to win the heart; and in this
+enchanting being, in whom the splendor of French gayety shone forth,
+an indescribable but august serenity--perhaps, also, the somewhat
+proud position of her head and shoulders--betrayed the daughter of
+the Cæsars." Such, according to her affectionate chronicler,
+appeared Marie Antoinette, when her nuptials were celebrated at
+Versailles with the Dauphin of France.
+
+Superstitious minds discovered fatal omens from the earliest years
+of the hapless dauphiness. She had begun ill by first drawing breath
+upon the very day of the earthquake of Lisbon; this made a great
+impression on the mother, and later upon the child also. Another
+incident was not less discouraging: the empress had "protected a
+person named Gassner," who fancied himself inspired, and affected to
+predict events. "Tell me," she said to him one day, "whether my
+Antoinette will be happy?" At first Gassner turned pale and remained
+silent, but, urged by the empress, and dreading to distress her by
+his own fancies, he said, equivocally, "Madame, there are crosses
+for all shoulders." Goethe notices that a pavilion erected to
+receive Marie Antoinette and her suite in the neighborhood of
+Strasburg was lined with tapestry depicting the story of Jason, "the
+most fatal union" on record; and a few days later, when the young
+queen arrived from Versailles to witness the rejoicings of the
+people upon her marriage, she was compelled to fly, terrified, from
+a scene remarkable not for festivity and happiness, but for the
+variety and horror of its accidents. These circumstances threw a
+gloom over the prospective triumphs of the impressionable bride; but
+her nature and age were alike favorable to vivacity, and she shook
+off the morbid influence.
+
+Something of her mother's wise advice to her as to the course she
+should follow in her new position has been preserved in the
+following letter:
+
+"MY DEAR DAUGHTER:
+
+"... Do not take any recommendations; listen to no one, if you would
+be at peace. Have no curiosity,--this is a fault which I fear
+greatly for you; avoid all familiarity with your inferiors. Ask of
+Monsieur and Madame de Noailles, and even exact of them, under all
+circumstances, advice as to what, as a foreigner and being desirous
+of pleasing the nation, you should do, and that they should tell you
+frankly if there be anything in your bearing, discourse, or any
+point which you should correct. Reply amiably to every one, and with
+grace and dignity; you can if you will. You must learn to refuse....
+After Strasburg you must accept nothing without taking counsel of
+Monsieur and Madame de Noailles; and you should refer to them every
+one who would speak to you of his personal affairs, saying frankly
+that being a stranger yourself, you cannot undertake to recommend
+any one to the king. If you wish you may add, in order to make your
+reply more emphatic, 'The empress, my mother, has expressly
+forbidden me to undertake any recommendations.' Do not be ashamed to
+ask advice of any one, and do nothing on your own responsibility....
+In the king you will find a tender father who will also be your
+friend if you deserve it. Put entire confidence in him; you will run
+no risk. Love him, obey him, seek to divine his thoughts; you cannot
+do enough on this moment when I am losing you.... Concerning the
+dauphin I shall say nothing; you know my delicacy on this point. A
+wife should be submissive in everything to her husband, and should
+have no thought but to please him and do his will.... The only true
+happiness in this world lies in a happy marriage; I know whereof I
+speak. Everything depends on the wife if she be yielding, sweet, and
+amusing.... I counsel you, my dear daughter, to reread this letter
+on the twenty-first of every month. I beg you to be true to me on
+this point. My only fear for you is negligence in your prayers and
+studies; and lukewarmness succeeds negligence. Fight against it, for
+it is more dangerous than a more reprehensible, even wicked state;
+one can conquer that more easily. Love your family; be affectionate
+to them--to your aunts as well as to your brothers-in-law and
+sisters-in-law. Suffer no evil-speaking; you must either silence the
+persons, or escape it by withdrawing from them. If you value your
+peace of mind, you must from the start avoid this pitfall, which I
+greatly fear for you knowing your curiosity....
+
+  "Your mother,
+                         "MARIA-THERESA."
+
+The grand annoyance Marie Antoinette experienced upon her entrance
+into the French Court, was the necessity of observing a system of
+etiquette to which she had been unaccustomed, and soon pronounced,
+with girlish vehemence, insupportable. Barrière copies a ridiculous
+anecdote in illustration of this from the manuscript fragments of
+Madame Campan: "Madame de Noailles" (this was the first lady of
+honor to the dauphiness) "abounded in virtues; I cannot pretend to
+deny it. Her piety, charity, and irreproachable morals rendered her
+worthy of praise, but etiquette was to her a sort of atmosphere; at
+the slightest derangement of the consecrated order, one would have
+thought she would have been stifled, and that life would forsake her
+frame. One day I unintentionally threw this poor lady into a
+terrible agony. The queen was receiving I know not whom--some
+persons just presented, I believe; the lady of honor, the queen's
+tire-woman, and the ladies of the bed-chamber were behind the queen.
+I was near the throne with the two women on duty. All was right; at
+least, I thought so. Suddenly I perceived the eyes of Madame de
+Noailles fixed on mine. She made a sign with her head, and then
+raised her eyebrows to the top of her forehead, lowered them, raised
+them again, then began to make little signs with her hand. From all
+this pantomime, I could easily perceive that something was not as it
+should be; as I looked about on all sides to find out what it was,
+the agitation of the countess kept increasing. The queen, who
+perceived all this, looked at me with a smile. I found means to
+approach her Majesty, who said to me in a whisper: '_Let down your
+lappets, or the countess will expire._' All this bustle arose from
+two unlucky pins, which fastened up my lappets, while the etiquette
+of costume said '_Lappets hanging down_.'"
+
+To the Countess de Noailles Marie Antoinette speedily gave the name
+of Madame l'Étiquette; this pleasantry the object of it could
+pardon, not so the French nation. The avowed dislike to ceremony
+manifested by the lively little dauphiness, her desire to substitute
+the simple manners of her native Vienna for the stately formality of
+Versailles, displeased more than her genuine condescension and
+affability attracted. Early also in her married life, to beguile the
+heavy tedium of their evenings, she instituted a variety of childish
+games which became talked of and condemned; she liked theatrical
+representations, and persuaded her two young brothers-in-law, with
+the princesses, to join her in performing plays, and though they
+were kept secret for a time, she suffered for her innocent
+contrivances in public opinion. It must be remembered that Marie
+Antoinette had no sincere friends upon her arrival in France, except
+the Duc de Choiseul and his party, and his disgrace prevented her
+deriving much benefit from the man who had first negotiated her
+marriage. The house of Austria was looked upon with dislike and
+doubt; nor were these, even in the case of the young dauphin's aunt,
+Madame Adelaide, made a matter of concealment. Thus, at her entrance
+upon public life, Antoinette was met with cynicism and prejudice,
+and unfortunately her own conduct rather increased than quieted the
+insidious voice--the "_bruit sourd_"--of both.
+
+Louis XV. had manifested from the first great pleasure in the
+society of his grandson's bride. After dining in his apartment at
+the Tuileries, upon her arrival at Paris, she was obliged to
+acknowledge the shouts of the multitude, which filled the garden
+below, by presenting herself on the balcony. The Governor of Paris
+had told her politely at the time, that "these were so many lovers."
+Little did she think that at the very moment a strong party around
+her was planning her divorce, under the supposition that the
+dauphin's coldness to his bride proceeded from dislike. Louis was a
+timid, though rough, youth at the time, and for a considerable
+period treated the attractions which the courtiers so highly
+extolled, with churlish indifference. The French king, indeed, did
+his best to promote a better understanding, and when the reserve of
+the dauphin once thawed, the latter became tenderly attached to her,
+and greatly improved by her influence and society.
+
+An interesting trait of this youthful pair is told, as occurring at
+the moment when they might have been excused for entertaining other
+and more selfish thoughts. They were expecting the intelligence of
+the death of Louis XV. It had been agreed, as the disorder was one
+frightfully contagious, that the court should depart immediately
+upon learning it could be of no further assistance, and that a
+lighted taper, placed in the window of the dying monarch's chamber,
+should form a signal for the cavalcade to prepare for the journey.
+The taper was extinguished; a tumult of voices and advancing feet
+were heard in the outer apartment. "It was the crowd of courtiers
+deserting the dead sovereign's ante-chamber, to come and bow to the
+new power of Louis XVI." With a spontaneous impulse the dauphin and
+his bride threw themselves upon their knees, and shedding a torrent
+of tears, exclaimed, "O God! guide us, protect us; we are too young
+to govern." Thus the Countess de Noailles found them as she entered,
+the first to salute Marie Antoinette as Queen of France.
+
+[Illustration: Marie Antoinette.]
+
+For some time the young queen's liking for children was ungratified by
+the possession of any of her own, and this gave rise to an amusing
+attempt to adopt one belonging to others. One day, when she was
+driving near Luciennes, a little peasant boy fell under the horses'
+feet, and might have been killed. The queen took him to Versailles,
+appointed him a nurse, and installed him in the royal apartments,
+constantly seating him in her lap at breakfast and dinner. This child
+afterward grew up a most sanguinary revolutionist! It was nine years
+before Marie Antoinette had the blessing of any offspring; four
+children were after that interval, born to her, two of whom died in
+their infancy, and two survived to share their parent's subsequent
+imprisonment. The sad history of her son's fate, a promising and
+attractive boy, is well known.
+
+We have seen the Austrian princess was no favorite with her
+husband's nation. After a time accusations as unjust as serious
+assailed her, and in the horrors of the succeeding revolution the
+popular feeling evinced itself in a hundred frightful ways. Louis
+XVI., a mild prince, averse to violence or bloodshed, was unfit to
+stem the tide of opposition; had he possessed the energy of his
+queen, the Reign of Terror had perhaps never existed. Throughout her
+misfortunes, in every scene of flight, of opprobrium, and
+desolation, her magnanimity and courage won, even from the ruffians
+around, occasional expressions of sympathy. A harrowing and
+melancholy history is hers, and one which has been often vividly
+narrated; its details, also, are sufficiently recent to be still
+fresh within the recollection of many. For these reasons, and
+further because it seems to us a repellent, if not a mischievous,
+act to amplify such records before advancing age shall have invested
+them to the mind with deeper significance, we gladly pass over the
+picture suggested by this dark historical page, and, resuming the
+narrative where Madame de Campan drops it, content ourselves with a
+description of the last scene in the terrible drama.
+
+When this devoted woman left her royal mistress in the miserable
+cell at the Convent of the Feuillans, she never again saw her.
+Imprisonment, and the intense grief she experienced, more for others
+than for herself, completely transformed the once beautiful queen;
+her hair was prematurely silvered, like that of Mary Stuart, her
+figure bowed, her voice low and tremulous. Then came the separation
+from the king. Once more only did her eyes again behold him, and
+after the parting between the dethroned monarch and his adoring
+family, he might indeed have been able to say, "The bitterness of
+death was passed." However weak at intervals, the unhappy Louis met
+his death heroically. The sufferings of his wife at the time when
+the guns boomed out the fearful catastrophe, may be supposed to have
+been as great as the human frame has power to endure. Shortly after,
+she was separated from her children and conveyed to the prison of
+the Conciergerie, a damp and loathsome place, whence she was
+summoned one morning in October to receive a sentence for which it
+is probable she ardently longed. Let us look at her through the bars
+of her prison upon her return thither after it was pronounced.
+
+It is four o'clock in the morning. The widowed Queen of France
+stands calm and resigned in her cell, listening with a melancholy
+smile to the tumult of the mob outside. A faint illumination
+announces the approach of day; it is the last she has to live!
+Seating herself at a table she writes, with hurried hand, a last
+letter of ardent tenderness to the sister of her husband, the pious
+Madame Elizabeth, and to her children; and now she passionately
+presses the insensible paper to her lips, as the sole remaining link
+between those dear ones and herself. She stops, sighs, and throws
+herself upon her miserable pallet. What! in such an hour as this can
+the queen sleep? Even so!
+
+And now look up, daughter of the Cæsars! Thou art waked from dreams
+of hope and light, from the imaged embrace of thy beloved Louis, thy
+tender infants, by a kind voice, choked by tears. Arise! emancipated
+one, thy prison doors are open. Freedom, freedom is at hand!
+
+Immediately in front of the palace of the Tuileries--scene of the
+short months of her wedded happiness--there rises a dark, ominous
+mass. Around is a sea of human faces; above, the cold frown of a
+winter's sky. With a firm step the victim ascends the stairs of the
+scaffold, her white garments wave in the chill breeze, a black ribbon
+by which her cap is confined beats to and fro against her pale cheeks.
+You may see that she is unmindful of her executioners--she glances,
+nay, almost smiles, at the sharp edge of the guillotine, and then
+turning her eyes toward the Temple, utters, in a few agitated words,
+her last earthly farewell to Louis and her children. There is a
+hush--a stillness of the grave--for the very headsman trembles as the
+horrible blade falls--anon, a moment's delay. And now, look! No,
+rather veil your eyes from the dreadful sight; close your ears to that
+fiendish shout--_Vive la République!_ It is over! the sacrifice is
+accomplished! the weary spirit is at rest!
+
+Let us dwell upon this last mournful pageant only sufficiently far
+as to imitate the virtues, and emulate the firmness and resignation
+with which she met her doom. Nothing is permitted without a meaning,
+all is for either warning or example; and while breathing a prayer
+that Heaven may avert a recurrence of such outrages, let us remember
+that moral indecision, the undue love of pleasure, and an aimless,
+profitless mode of life, as surely, and not less fatally, may raise
+the surging tide of events no human skill can quell, as the most
+selfish abandonment to uncontrolled desires.
+
+
+
+
+ANDREAS HOFER
+
+(1767-1810)
+
+
+Andreas Hofer, a native of the village of St. Leonard, in the valley
+of Passeyr, was born on November 22, 1767. During the greater part
+of his life he resided peaceably in his own neighborhood, where he
+kept an inn, and increased his profits by dealing in wine, corn, and
+cattle. About his neck he wore at all times a small crucifix and a
+medal of St. George. He never held any rank in the Austrian army;
+but he had formed a secret connection with the Archduke John, when
+that prince had passed a few weeks in the Tyrol making scientific
+researches. In November, 1805, Hofer was appointed deputy from his
+native valley at the conference of Brunnecken, and again at a second
+conference, held at Vienna, in January, 1809.
+
+[Illustration: Andreas Hofer.]
+
+The Tyrol had for many years been an appendage of the Austrian
+states, and the inhabitants had become devoted to that government;
+so that when, by the treaty of Presburg, the province was
+transferred to the rule of the King of Bavaria, then the ally of
+Napoleon I., the peasants were greatly irritated, and their
+discontent was further provoked by the large and frequent exactions
+which the continual wars obliged the new government to levy on the
+Tyrolese. The consequence was, that when their own neighborhood
+became the theatre of military operations between Austria and
+France, in the spring of 1809, a general insurrection broke out in
+the Tyrol. His resolution of character, natural eloquence, and
+private influence as a wealthy citizen, joined to a figure of great
+stature and strength, pointed out Andreas Hofer to his countrymen as
+the leader of this revolt; and with him were united Spechbacher,
+Joseph Haspinger, and Martin Teimer, whose names have all become
+historical. A perfect understanding was maintained between the
+insurgents and their late masters, and the signal of the
+insurrection was given by the Archduke John in a proclamation from
+his head-quarters at Klagenfurth. An Austrian army of 10,000 men,
+commanded by the Marquis Castellar, was directed to enter the Tyrol
+and support the insurrection, which broke out in every quarter on
+the night of April 8, 1809. The Austrian general himself crossed the
+frontier at daybreak on the 9th. On their side the Bavarians marched
+an army of 25,000 men into the province to quell the revolt. Hofer
+and his band of armed peasantry fell upon the Bavarians while
+entangled in the narrow glens, and on April 10th defeated Besson and
+Lemoine at the Sterzinger Moos. The next day a troop of peasants
+under Teimer took possession of Innsbrück. On the 12th Besson
+surrendered with his division of 3,000 men. In a single week all the
+fortresses were recovered, nearly 10,000 troops of the enemy were
+destroyed, and the whole province was redeemed.
+
+Incensed by this interruption of his plans, Napoleon despatched
+three armies almost simultaneously to assail the province at three
+different points. One of these forces was under the command of
+Marshal Lefebvre, who, on May 12th, defeated the united army of the
+Austrian soldiers, under Castellar, and the Tyrolese peasantry,
+under Haspinger and Spechbacher, at Feuer Singer. The troops made a
+bad use of their victory, slaughtering the inhabitants of the
+villages on their route, without distinction of age or sex. The
+Bavarian and French officers encouraged and took part in the
+excesses of the soldiers; while the insurgents, far from
+retaliating, refrained from every species of license, and nursed
+their wounded prisoners with the same care as their own friends.
+Hofer himself was not always present in action, his talent
+consisting rather in stimulating his countrymen than in actual
+fighting; but at the battle of Innsbrück (May 28, 1809), he led the
+Tyrolese, exhibited both skill and daring, and defeated the
+Bavarians with a loss of 4,000 men. The whole of the Tyrol was
+delivered a second time. But after the battle of Wagram (July 6th),
+and the armistice of Znaim which immediately followed, the Austrian
+army was obliged to evacuate the Tyrol, leaving the helpless
+insurgents to the mercy of an exasperated enemy. Marshal Lefebvre
+now invaded the province a second time, and entered it by the road
+from Salzburg, with an army of 21,000 troops, while Beaumont, having
+crossed the ridge of Schnartz with a force 10,000 strong, threatened
+Innsbrück from the north. On July 30th Innsbrück submitted. A series
+of desperate contests followed along the line of the Brenner, mostly
+with doubtful success, but in one the marshal was defeated, when
+twenty-five pieces of artillery and a quantity of ammunition fell
+into the hands of the Tyrolese. Again, on August 12th, Marshal
+Lefebvre, with an army of 25,000 Bavarian and French soldiers, 2,000
+of whom were cavalry, was totally beaten by the Tyrolese army,
+consisting of 18,000 armed peasants. The battle, which was fought
+near Innsbrück, is said to have lasted from six in the morning until
+midnight. For a third time the Tyrol was free.
+
+After this victory, entirely achieved by the peasantry themselves,
+Hofer became the absolute ruler of the country; coins were struck
+with his effigy, and proclamations issued in his name. His power,
+however, scarcely lasted two months, and became the cause of his
+ruin ultimately. Three veteran armies, comprising a force of nearly
+50,000 French and Bavarian troops, were despatched in October to
+subdue the exhausted province; and, unable to make head against
+them, Hofer was obliged to take refuge in the mountains. Soon after,
+a price having been set on his head, a pretended friend (a priest
+named Donay) was induced to betray him, January 20, 1810. After his
+arrest he was conveyed to Mantua, and the intelligence having been
+communicated by telegraph to the French emperor, an order was
+instantly returned that he must be tried. This order was a sentence;
+and after a court-martial, at which, however, the majority were
+averse to a sentence of death, Hofer was condemned to be shot. His
+execution took place on February 20, 1810, his whole military career
+having occupied less than forty weeks. The Emperor Francis conferred
+a handsome pension upon the widow and family of Hofer, and created
+Hofer's son a noble. The Austrian government also raised a marble
+statue of heroic size in the cathedral of Innsbrück, where the body
+of the patriot was interred; while his own countrymen have
+commemorated his efforts by raising a small pyramid to mark the spot
+where he was taken.
+
+[Illustration: Andreas Hofer led to Execution.]
+
+
+
+
+QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA
+
+By Mrs. FRANCIS G. FAITHFULL
+
+(1776-1810)
+
+[Illustration: Queen Louise of Prussia.]
+
+
+There is at Paretz, near Potsdam, a flower-bordered walk leading
+from a grotto overlooking the Havel to an iron gate, above which is
+inscribed "May 20, 1810" and the letter "L." Within the grotto an
+iron table bears in golden characters, "Remember the Absent."
+
+These words were engraved by order of Friedrich Wilhelm III. of
+Prussia; and the "absent" he would have remembered--"the star of his
+life, who had lighted him so truly on his darkened way"--was the
+wife who died of a broken heart before reaching middle age.
+
+Louise Augusta Wilhelmina, third daughter of Duke Charles of
+Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was born on March 10, 1776, in the city of
+Hanover. Her mother died when she was six years old, and henceforth
+she and her sister Frederica lived with their grandmother, the
+Landgravine of Darmstadt, sometimes at the Burgfreiheit Palace,
+sometimes at a château in the Herrengarten, surrounded by formal
+gardens and orangeries. The girls were brought up simply, making
+their own clothes, and going much among the poor. Now and then they
+made expeditions to Strasburg or the Vosges Mountains; and, when the
+Emperor Leopold was crowned at Frankfort, the Frau von Goethe housed
+them hospitably, and was highly entertained by the glee with which
+they worked a quaint sculptured pump in her courtyard. Two years
+later the advance of French troops compelled them to seek refuge
+with their eldest sister, the reigning Duchess of Hildburghausen;
+and on their homeward way they visited the Prussian head-quarters,
+that the Landgravine might present them to the king. His sons were
+with him, and long afterward the Crown Prince told a friend, "I felt
+when I saw her, 'tis she or none on earth."
+
+The wooing was short. On April 24, 1793, he exchanged betrothal
+rings with Louise, and then rejoined his regiment. Soon after, the
+Princesses of Mecklenburg went over to the camp, Louise appearing "a
+heavenly vision" in the eyes of Goethe, who saw her there.
+
+In the December of that same year Berlin, gay with flags and ablaze
+with colored lamps, welcomed Duke Charles and his daughters; and on
+Christmas Eve the diamond crown of the Hohenzollerns was placed on
+her fair head, and in her glistening silver robe she took part in
+the solemn torch procession round the White Saloon.
+
+Then her young husband took her home to their palace in the "Unter
+den Linden." They were very happy. In the sunshine of his wife's
+presence the prince's spirit, crushed in childhood by a harsh tutor,
+soon revived, while Louise, though the darling of the court, was
+always most content when alone with him.
+
+"Thank God! you are my wife again," he exclaimed, one day, when she
+had laid aside her jewels.
+
+"Am I not always your wife?" she asked, laughingly.
+
+"Alas! no; too often you can be only the crown princess."
+
+Her father-in-law never wearied of showering kindnesses on his
+"Princess of Princesses." On her eighteenth birthday he asked if she
+desired anything he could give. "A handful of gold for the Berlin
+poor," was the prompt petition.
+
+"And how large a handful would the birthday child like?"
+
+"As large as the heart of the kindest of kings."
+
+The Castle of Charlottenberg, one of his many gifts to the young
+pair, proving too splendid for their simple tastes, he bought for
+them the Manor of Paretz, about two miles from Potsdam. There Louise
+busied herself with household affairs, while her husband gardened,
+strolled over his fields, or inspected his farm stock. They played
+and sang together, or read Shakespeare and Goethe, while to complete
+this home-life came two baby boys: Fritz, born in October, 1795, and
+Friedrich Wilhelm, in March, 1797. Someone once asked Louise if this
+country existence was not rather dull. "Oh! no," she exclaimed; "I
+am quite happy as the worthy lady of Paretz."
+
+But in the late autumn of 1797 the king died, and the quiet freedom
+of Paretz had to be exchanged for the restraints of court life.
+Little as either of the two desired regal pomp, they played their
+new parts well. Friedrich Wilhelm, stately in bearing, and
+acknowledged as the handsomest man in his realm, looked every inch a
+king; and if his laconic speech and caustic criticisms sometimes
+gave offence, the winning gentleness of his beautiful wife more than
+made amends. Nobles and citizens, statesmen, soldiers, and savants
+were alike made welcome; and Louise knew instinctively how to make
+each show at his best. With eager interest she discussed
+Pestalozzi's ideas with his disciples; and when Gotlöeb Hiller, the
+poet-son of a miner, was presented to her, she led him aside, and by
+the friendly ease with which she talked of things familiar to him,
+speedily banished his shyness. Indeed, ready as she was to recognize
+high gifts and to learn from all able to teach, yet it was to the
+obscure and suffering that her tones were most soft and gracious.
+Even in trifles her thoughtfulness was unfailing. When a count and a
+shoemaker were announced at the same moment, she gave audience first
+to the shoemaker. "For time is more valuable to him."
+
+[Illustration: Queen Louise visiting the Poor.]
+
+At Dantzic she constantly wore an amber necklace, because it had
+been the gift of the townsfolk. The voice which in childhood had
+pleaded for the panting footman running beside her grandmother's
+coach, might still be heard interceding, for when the royal carriage
+was overturned near Warsaw, and the Oberk of Messterin rated the
+servants, Louise interposed: "We are not hurt, and our people have
+assuredly been more alarmed than we."
+
+Sometimes the midday meal was spread beneath a forest tree, and from
+far and near the peasants flocked to get "even a glimpse of her
+lovely face." They followed in crowds while she and the king climbed
+the Schneekoppe on foot, but loyal shouts died into awed silence
+when, at the summit, Friedrich Wilhelm bared his head, and the two
+standing side by side gazed at the glorious view. "That was one of
+the most blessed moments of my life," Louise said afterward; "we
+seemed lifted above this earth and nearer our God."
+
+They entered the mines at Woldenberg by a swift-flowing stream, and
+twenty years afterward the steersman of their boat was fond of
+telling how, in the dark cavern--"The Foxes' Hole"--he saw her well
+by the torchlight. "In all my life I never saw such a face. She
+looked grand, as a queen should look, but gentle as a child. She
+gave me with her own hands two Holland ducats. My wife wears them
+when she goes to church, for what she touched is holy."
+
+Louise had never meddled in foreign politics. She had been, she
+designed to be, only the "Landesmutter," and even when the murder of
+the Duc d'Enghien, seized on Prussian soil, aroused in Berlin a
+storm of indignation, in which she fully shared, she yet sympathized
+in the mental distress which found vent in her husband's
+often-repeated words, "I cannot decide for war."
+
+At last he did decide. In October, 1805, Napoleon ordered Bernadotte
+to march his army corps through Anspach. This contemptuous comment
+on Prussia's ten-years' forbearance was too much for the king's
+pride. Armies were raised in Franconia, Saxony, Westphalia, and
+while the excitement was at fever point the czar came to Berlin. All
+his rare charm of manner was brought to bear, and at midnight, in
+the presence of Louise, the two monarchs, standing with clasped
+hands beside the tomb of the great Friedrich, solemnly pledged
+themselves to a close alliance.
+
+Alexander departed to lead his Russians to Moravia, and Friedrich
+Wilhelm despatched a protest to the French camp; but the envoy,
+Haugwitz, arriving on the eve of Austerlitz, waited the issue of the
+battle, and then, withholding his packet, proposed to the victor a
+fresh treaty with Prussia. There was wrath in Berlin when his doings
+became known. The king at first disowned the disgraceful compact,
+but Austerlitz had just taught him what Napoleon's enemies might
+expect. French troops were already massing on his frontier, and in
+an evil hour he broke faith with the czar! To Louise, who neither
+feared foe nor deserted friend, that was a bitter time--doubly sad,
+indeed, since most of the long winter was spent by the dying bed of
+her youngest child. When she lost him her own strength broke down,
+and the doctors ordered her away to drink the Pyrmont waters. In the
+late summer she was able to rejoin her husband, and he had startling
+news to tell, for war with France was close at hand.
+
+Since Haugwitz's fatal agreement Napoleon had heaped injuries on
+Prussia. Now, at least, king and people were of one mind. The young
+Prussian officers sharpened their swords on the French ambassador's
+window-sills, patriotic songs were hailed with thunders of applause
+in street and theatre, and when the queen, clad in the uniform of
+her own Hussars, rode at their head through the city, she was
+greeted with passionate loyalty.
+
+Unhappily, Friedrich Wilhelm, hitherto too tardy, was now too
+precipitate. He had been passive while France crushed Austria, and
+Austria, suspicious and disabled, neither could nor would assist
+him. Russia, with better reason for distrust, responded generously
+to his appeal, but he did not wait for her promised aid. For all his
+haste, Napoleon, with 180,000 men, was nearing the Thuringian Forest
+before the Prussian troops left Berlin. They were very confident,
+those Prussian troops, and the shouting multitudes who watched the
+well-trained artillery and cavalry defiling by, hardly dreamed of
+disaster; yet it came almost at once. The Saxon corps, led by the
+king's cousin, Prince Louis, pushing on too fast, was surprised and
+surrounded, and the gallant young commander, the queen's dear
+friend, the idol of the army, fell while rallying his men.
+
+Louise, who had hurriedly joined the king from Weimar, could hardly
+be persuaded to leave him, but on the evening of October 13th he
+confided her to a cavalry escort, promising speedy tidings of the
+coming battle. As she threaded the lonely passes of the Hartz
+Mountains she heard the distant cannonading, and a broken sentence
+now and again fell from her lips: "We know that all things work
+together for good." Late in the misty October twilight she drove
+into Brunswick. At Brandenburg a courier brought the news her
+trembling heart awaited. All was lost! Twenty thousand Prussians lay
+on the fields of Auerstadt and Jena, and the French were already in
+Weimar. The king was alive, but two horses had been killed under
+him. Grief-stricken, travel-worn as she was, Louise must not halt.
+Before she reached Berlin her children had been sent to
+Schwedt-on-Oder. She followed thither, almost terrifying them by her
+changed, despairing looks. As soon as she could check her weeping,
+she told her boys all she knew about Prince Louis's death. "Do not
+only grieve for him. Be ready for Prussia's sake to meet death as he
+met it," and then, in burning, never-forgotten words, she bade them
+one day free their country and break the power of France.
+
+There seemed only a choice between utter destruction and utter
+submission, and yet when Napoleon demanded the cession of almost the
+whole kingdom, Friedrich Wilhelm and his wife agreed that "only
+determined resistance can save us." She was slowly rallying at
+Königsberg from a fever caught in the crowded city, when the cry was
+raised of the coming French. Propped by pillows, swathed in shawls,
+she drove through blinding sleet to Memel, the one fortress still
+left to the king. At her first halting-place the wind whistled in
+through a broken window, and the melting snow dripped from the roof
+on to her bed. Her companions trembled for her, but she, calm and
+trustful, hailed as a good omen the sunshine which welcomed them
+within the walls of Memel.
+
+A week later Benningsen and his Russians, who had been wading
+knee-deep through Polish forests and fording swollen streams, always
+with 90,000 Frenchmen in hot pursuit, turned to bay amid the frozen
+lakes and drifted snows of Eylau. Next day those snows for miles
+around were red with blood. It was hard to tell with whom the costly
+victory lay, but Napoleon despatched Bertrand to the Russian
+outposts to propose an armistice, and Benningsen sent him on to
+Memel, reminding the Prussian king that it could not be their
+interest to grant what it was Napoleon's interest to ask. The terms
+were, indeed, far easier than those offered after June; but
+Friedrich Wilhelm, true to the ally who had held the field almost
+single-handed through that terrible winter, would make no separate
+agreement, nor did Louise receive more favorably a message to
+herself, conveying Napoleon's wish to pay his court to her in her
+own capital.
+
+Though the piercing Baltic winds tried her strength greatly, she
+employed herself whenever able in reading and visiting the over-full
+hospitals. To a dear friend she said, "I can never be perfectly
+miserable while faith in God is open to me." "Only by patient
+perseverance," so she wrote to her father, "can we succeed. Sooner
+or later I know we shall do so."
+
+It was not to be yet. On June 14, 1807, Napoleon annihilated the
+Russians at Friedland, and four days later Dantzic fell. Her tone
+grew sadder. "We are not yet bereft of peace. My great sorrow is
+being unable to hope."
+
+As the czar could resist no longer and Napoleon desired peace, they
+met at Tilsit, and there, on a covered raft moored midway in the
+Niemen, arranged the outlines of a treaty. The next day Friedrich
+Wilhelm, yielding to stern necessity, accepted terms "to the last
+degree hard and overwhelming." The czar, believing that Louise might
+move even Napoleon to clemency, her husband begged her to join him
+at Tilsit. On reading this summons she burst into tears, declaring
+this the hardest task ever given her to do. "With my broken wing how
+can I succeed?" she pathetically asked.
+
+Napoleon paid his respects soon after her arrival, and they met at
+the stairhead. Louise, for Prussia's sake, forced herself to utter
+courteous regrets that he should have to mount so steep a staircase.
+He answered blandly that no difficulties were feared when striving
+for a reward beyond. Then, touching her gauze robe, asked, "Is it
+crêpe?"
+
+"Shall we speak of such trifles at such a time?" was her only reply.
+
+He was silent; then demanded, "How could you make war on me?"
+
+She told him that they had overrated their strength.
+
+"And relying on the great Friedrich's fame you deceived yourselves."
+
+Louise's clear eyes met his steadily. "Sire, resting on the great
+Friedrich's fame, we might naturally deceive ourselves, if, indeed,
+we wholly did so."
+
+Then she told him that she had come to entreat him to be generous to
+Prussia. He answered respectfully, but made no promise. Again, with
+exceeding earnestness, she implored at least for Magdeburg, just
+then Friedrich Wilhelm entered, and Napoleon abruptly took leave.
+
+"Sire," said Talleyrand warningly to him, when they were alone,
+"shall posterity say that you threw away your great conquest for the
+sake of a lovely woman?"
+
+Louise meanwhile dwelt again and again on Napoleon's words, "You ask
+a great deal, but I will think about it." Yet her heart was heavy,
+and when arrayed for the evening banquet in the splendid attire so
+long unworn, she likened herself sadly to the old German victims
+decked for sacrifice. Napoleon said of her afterward, "I knew I
+should see a beautiful and dignified queen; I found the most
+interesting woman and admirable queen I had ever known."
+
+The treaty of Tilsit restored to Friedrich Wilhelm a fragment of his
+kingdom, but even this was to be held by the French till after the
+payment of a huge indemnity. Napoleon's threat that he would make
+the Prussian nobles beg their bread had hardly been a vain one, for
+the unhappy Prussians had to feed, lodge, and clothe every French
+soldier quartered in their land. Dark as was the outlook, Louise was
+upheld by loving pride in her husband. "After Eylau he might have
+deserted a faithful ally. This he would not do. I believe his
+conduct will yet bring good fortune to Prussia."
+
+To help forward that good fortune they sold most of the crown lands
+and the queen's jewels, and had the gold plate melted down. Amid
+their heavy anxieties and pains they were not wholly unhappy, these
+two, who loved each other so entirely. "My Louise," the king said to
+her one day, "you have grown yet dearer to me in this time of
+trouble, for I more fully know the treasure I possess."
+
+She, too, could write of him, "The king is kinder to me than ever, a
+great joy and reward after a union of fourteen years." Still those
+about her told of sleepless nights when prayer was her only relief.
+Her eyes had lost their brightness, her cheeks were pale, her step
+languid. By the Christmas of 1808 the last French soldier had
+quitted Prussian soil; but it was not deemed safe for the royal
+family to return at once to Berlin, and they spent the summer at
+Hufen, near Königsberg. Parents and children were constantly
+together, and the mother taught herself to believe that the sharp
+trials of those years would tell for good on her boys and girls. "If
+they had been reared in luxury and prosperity they might think that
+so it must always be."
+
+It was not till the end of 1809 that the exiles turned their faces
+homeward. They travelled slowly, for the queen was still feeble.
+Everywhere a glad welcome greeted them; and on December 23d, the day
+on which, sixteen years before, she had entered the capital a
+girl-bride, Louise drove through its familiar streets in a carriage
+presented to her by the rejoicing citizens. Her father was waiting
+at the palace gate. He helped her to alight and led her in. Three
+years had gone by since she last crossed the threshold of her home,
+and what years they had been! Nor was the return all joy, for she
+knew and dreaded the changes she would find there. Napoleon and his
+generals had not departed empty handed. They had stripped the rooms
+of paintings and statues, of manuscripts and antiquities.
+
+As the doors closed a great shout arose from the vast crowd before
+the palace. Presently she appeared in the balcony, and all saw the
+traces of long anguish in the lovely face, now bright with grateful
+smiles.
+
+After a solemn service in the Dom, the king and queen drove through
+the illuminated city to the opera-house. "The queen sat beside her
+husband"--so wrote Fouqué afterward--"and as she talked she often
+raised her eyes to him with a very touching expression.... Our
+beloved queen has thanked us with tears. Bonaparte has dimmed those
+heavenly eyes ... and we must do all we can to make them sparkle
+again."
+
+The bare walls, the empty cabinets of the palace, accorded with the
+almost ascetic habits now maintained there. Self-denial was made
+easy by one belief, that Prussia would arise from her great
+suffering stronger than before. The king and queen were not left to
+work alone toward that high end. Able generals replaced those who,
+through treachery or faint-heartedness, had surrendered the
+fortresses. Stein, now chief minister, curtailed the rights of the
+nobles, and gave the serfs an interest in guarding the soil they
+tilled; while Scharnhorst, by an ingenious evasion of Napoleon's
+edict limiting the Prussian army, contrived to have 200,000 men
+rapidly drilled and trained. The universities founded at Berlin and
+Breslau became the head-quarters of secret societies for the
+deliverance of the Fatherland. Princes and professors, merchants
+ruined by the Berlin decrees, and peasants ground down by French
+exactions, joined the Jugendbund, and implicitly obeyed the orders
+of its unseen heads. Through town and country spread that vast
+brotherhood, fired by the songs of Tieck and Arnim to live or die
+for Prussia.
+
+And Louise watched thankfully the dawning promise of better days,
+"though, alas! we may die before they come."
+
+Perhaps that sad presentiment haunted her husband too. If she jested
+with her children he would say wistfully, "The queen is quite
+herself to-day. What a blessing it will be if her mind recovers its
+joyous tone!"
+
+That spring Louise was attacked by spasms of the heart. They did not
+last long, and when the court moved to Potsdam she seemed to regain
+strength, and showed much interest in discussing with Bishop Eylert
+how best to train her boys so that they might serve their country.
+Though very weak, she accompanied her family to Hohengieritz, the
+king perforce returning to Berlin. The loving eyes that watched her
+saw signs of amendment, but early on Monday, July 16th, the spasms
+recurred. For hours no remedies availed. She could only gasp for
+"Air! air!" and when the sharp pain had passed lay exhausted, now
+murmuring a few words of some hymn learnt as a child, faintly
+thanking God for each solace sent her, or entreating her grandmother
+to rest. No complaint passed her lips; she was only "very, very
+weary."
+
+They told her that couriers had been despatched for the king, and
+she asked anxiously, "Will he soon come?" Before dawn he came,
+bringing the two elder boys. For those who tried to cheer him he had
+only one mournful reply: "If she were not mine she might recover." A
+gleam of joy lighted her pale face when he came to her bedside, but
+perceiving his emotion she asked, "Am I then so very ill?" Unable to
+reply, he hurriedly left the room, and she said to those standing
+by, "His embrace was so wild, so fervent, that it seemed as though
+he would take leave of me. Tell him not to do that, or I shall die
+at once."
+
+He returned bringing in the children.
+
+"My Fritz! my Wilhelm!" She had only time for one long gaze, and
+then the agonizing pain came again. One of the doctors tried to
+raise her, but she sank back. "Only death can help me;" and as all
+watched in breathless silence, she leaned her head against the
+shoulder of a faithful attendant, murmured, "Lord Jesus, shorten
+it!" and with one deep-drawn breath passed away.
+
+
+
+
+JAMES WATT
+
+By JOHN TIMES, F.S.A.
+
+(1736-1819)
+
+[Illustration: James Watt.]
+
+
+James Watt was born at Greenock, January 19, 1736. He was the fourth
+child in a family which, for a hundred years, had more or less
+professed mathematics and navigation. His constitution was delicate,
+and his mental powers were precocious. He was distinguished from an
+early age by his candor and truthfulness; and his father, to
+ascertain the cause of any of his boyish quarrels, used to say, "Let
+James speak; from him I always hear the truth." James also showed
+his constructive tastes equally early, experimenting on his
+playthings with a set of small carpenter's tools, which his father
+had given him. At six he was still at home. "Mr. Watt," said a
+friend to the father, "you ought to send that boy to school, and not
+let him trifle away his time at home." "Look what he is doing before
+you condemn him," was the reply. The visitor then observed the child
+had drawn mathematical lines and figures on the hearth, and was
+engaged in a process of calculation. On putting questions to him, he
+was astonished at his quickness and simplicity. "Forgive me," said
+he, "this child's education has not been neglected; this is no
+common child."
+
+[Illustration: Watt discovering the Condensation of Steam.]
+
+Watt's cousin, Mrs. Marian Campbell, describes his inventive capacity
+as a story-teller, and details an incident of his occupying himself
+with the steam of a tea-kettle, and by means of a cup and a spoon
+making an early experiment in the condensation of steam. To this
+incident she probably attached more importance than was its due, from
+reverting to it when illustrated by her after-recollections. Out of
+this story, reliable or not in the sense ascribed to it, M. Arago
+obtained an oratorical point for an _éloge_, which he delivered to the
+French Institute. Watt may or may not have been occupied as a boy with
+the study of the condensation of steam while he was playing with the
+kettle. The story suggests a possibility, nothing more; though it has
+been made the foundation of a grave announcement, the subject of a
+pretty picture, and will ever remain a basis for suggestive
+speculation.
+
+Watt was sent to a commercial school, where he was provided with a
+fair outfit of Latin and with some elements of Greek; but
+mathematics he studied with greater zest, and with proportionate
+success. By the time he was fifteen, he had read twice, with grave
+attention, Gravesande's "Elements of Natural Philosophy;" and "while
+under his father's roof he went on with various chemical
+experiments, repeating them again and again, until satisfied of
+their accuracy from his own observations." He even made himself a
+small electrical machine, about 1750-53; no mean performance at that
+date, since, according to Priestley's "History of Electricity," the
+Leyden phial itself was not invented until the years 1745-46.
+
+His pastime lay chiefly in his father's marine store, among the
+sails and ropes, the blocks and tackle: or by the old gray gateway
+of the Mansion House on the hill above Greenock, where he would
+loiter away hours by day, and at night lie down on his back and
+watch the stars through the trees.
+
+At this early age Watt suffered from continual and violent
+headaches, which often affected his nervous system for many days,
+even weeks; and he was similarly afflicted throughout his long life.
+He seldom rose early, but accomplished more in a few hours' study
+than ordinary minds do in many days. He was never in a hurry, and
+always had leisure to give to his friends, to poetry, romance, and
+the publications of the day; he read indiscriminately almost every
+new book he could procure. He assisted his father in his business,
+and soon learned to construct with his own hands several of the
+articles required in the way of his parent's trade; and by means of
+a small forge, set up for his own use, he repaired and made various
+kinds of instruments, and converted, by the way, a large silver coin
+into a punch-ladle, as a trophy of his early skill as a metal-smith.
+From this aptitude for ingenious handiwork, and in accordance with
+his own deliberate choice, it was decided that he should proceed to
+qualify himself for following the trade of a mathematical instrument
+maker. He accordingly went to Glasgow, in June, 1754, and from
+there, after a year's stay, he proceeded for better instruction to
+London.
+
+On Watt's arrival in the metropolis, he sought a situation, but in
+vain, and he was beginning to despond, when he obtained work with
+one John Morgan, an instrument-maker, in Finch Lane, Cornhill. Here
+he gradually became proficient in making quadrants, parallel rulers,
+compasses, theodolites, etc., until, at the end of a year's
+practice, he could make "a brass sector with a French joint, which
+is reckoned as nice a piece of framing work as is in the trade."
+During this interval he contrived to live upon eight shillings a
+week, exclusive of his lodging. His fear of the press-gang and his
+bodily ailments, however, led to his quitting London in August,
+1756, and returning to Scotland, after investing twenty guineas in
+additional tools.
+
+At Glasgow, through the intervention of Dr. Dick, he was first
+employed in cleaning and repairing some of the instruments belonging
+to the college; and, after some difficulty, he received permission
+to open a shop within the precincts as "mathematical instrument
+maker to the University." Here Watt prospered, pursuing alike his
+course of manual labor and of mental study, and especially extending
+his acquaintance with physics; endeavoring, as he said, "to find out
+the weak side of nature, and to vanquish her." About this time he
+contrived an ingenious machine for drawing in perspective; and from
+fifty to eighty of these instruments, manufactured by him, were sent
+to different parts of the world. He had now procured the friendship
+of Dr. Black and another University worthy, John Robison, who, in
+stating the circumstances of his first introduction to Watt, says:
+"I saw a workman, and expected no more; but was surprised to find a
+philosopher as young as myself, and always ready to instruct me."
+
+It was some time in 1764 that the professor of natural philosophy in
+the University desired Watt to repair a pretty model of Newcomen's
+steam-engine. Like everything which came into Watt's hands, it soon
+became an object of most serious study.
+
+The interesting little model, as altered by the hand of Watt, was
+long placed beside the noble statue of the engineer in the Hunterian
+Museum at Glasgow. Watt himself, when he had got the bearings of his
+invention, could think of nothing else but his machine, and
+addressed himself to Dr. Roebuck, of the Carron Iron-works, with the
+view of its practical introduction to the world. A partnership
+ensued, but the connection did not prove satisfactory. Watt went on
+with his experiments, and in September, 1766, wrote to a friend: "I
+think I have laid up a stock of experience that will _soon_ pay me
+for the trouble it has cost me." Yet it was between eight and nine
+years before that invaluable experience was made available, so as
+either to benefit the public or repay the inventor; and a much
+longer term elapsed before it was possible for that repayment to be
+reckoned in the form of substantial profit.
+
+Watt now began to practise as a land-surveyor and civil engineer.
+His first engineering work was a survey for a canal to unite the
+Forth and Clyde, in furtherance of which he had to appear before the
+House of Commons. His consequent journey to London was still more
+important, for then it was that he saw for the first time the great
+manufactory which Boulton had established at Soho, and of which he
+was afterward himself to be the guiding intelligence. In the
+meantime, among his other performances, he invented a micrometer for
+measuring distances; and, what is still more remarkable, he
+entertained the idea of moving canal-boats by the steam-engine
+through the instrumentality of a _spiral oar_, which as nearly as
+possible coincides with the screw-propeller of our day.
+
+Watt's negotiations for partnership with Boulton were long and
+tedious. Dr. Roebuck's creditors concurred because, curiously
+enough, _none of them valued Watt's engine at a farthing_. Watt
+himself now began to despair, and his health failed; yet in 1774,
+when he had removed to Birmingham, he wrote to his father: "The
+fire-engine I have invented is now going, and answers much better
+than any other that has yet been made; and I expect that the
+invention will be very beneficial to me."
+
+A long series of experimental trials was, nevertheless, requisite
+before the engine could be brought to such perfection as to render
+it generally available to the public, and therefore profitable to
+its manufacturers. In January, 1775, six years of the patent had
+elapsed, and there seemed some probability of the remaining eight
+running out as fruitlessly. An application which was made for the
+extension of its term was unexpectedly opposed by the eloquence of
+Burke; but the orator and his associates failed, and the extension
+was accorded by Act of Parliament.
+
+The first practical employment of Watt's engines to any considerable
+extent was in the mining districts of Cornwall, where he himself
+was, in consequence, compelled to spend much of his time subsequent
+to 1775. Here he had to contend not only with natural obstacles in
+the dark abysses of deeply flooded mines, but with a rude and
+obstinate class of men as deeply flooded by inveterate prejudices.
+The result in the way of profit was not, however, satisfactory,
+notwithstanding the service to the mining interest was enormous. "It
+appears," says Watt, in 1780, "by our books, that Cornwall has
+hitherto eat up all the profits we have drawn from it, and all we
+have got by other places, and a good sum of our own money to the
+bargain."
+
+At this stage Watt himself was more fertile in mechanical inventions
+than in any other portion of his busy life. Taking his patents in
+their chronological order, the first (subsequent to that of 1769)
+was "For a new method of copying letters and other writings
+expeditiously," by means of copying _presses_. Of the same date was
+his invention of a machine "for drying linen and muslin by steam."
+On October 25, 1781, he took out his third patent (the second of the
+steam-engine series), "for certain new methods of applying the
+vibrating or reciprocating motion of steam or fire engines, to
+produce a continued rotative motion round an axis or centre, and
+thereby to give motion to the wheels of mills or other machines."
+One of these methods was that commonly known as the _sun-and-planet
+wheels_; they were five in all. A favorite employment of his in the
+workshops at Soho, in the later months of 1783 and earlier ones of
+1784, was to teach his steam-engine, now become nearly as docile as
+it was powerful, to work a tilt-hammer for forging iron and making
+steel. "Three hundred blows per minute--a thing never done before,"
+filled him, as his biographer says, with feelings of excusable
+pride. Another patent in the steam-engine series, taken out in 1784,
+contained, besides other methods of converting a circular or angular
+motion into a perpendicular or rectilineal motion, the well-known
+and much-admired _parallel motion_, and the application of the
+steam-engine to give motion to wheel-carriages for carrying persons
+and goods. To ascertain the exact number of strokes made by an
+engine during a given time, and thereby to check the cheats of the
+Cornish miners, Watt also invented the "Counter," with its several
+indexes. Among his leading improvements, introduced at various
+periods, were the _throttle-valve_, the application of the
+_governor_, the _barometer_ or float, the _steam-gauge_, and the
+indicator. The term during which he seems to have thus combined the
+greatest maturity with the greatest activity of intellect, and the
+portion of his life which they comprehended, was from his fortieth
+to his fiftieth year. Yet it was a term of increased suffering from
+his acute sick-headaches, and remarkable for the infirmities over
+which he triumphed; notwithstanding, he himself complained of his
+"stupidity and want of the inventive faculty."
+
+Watt's chemical studies in 1783, and the calculations they involved
+from experiments made by foreign chemists, induced him to make a
+proposal for a philosophical _uniformity of weights and measures_;
+and he discussed this proposal with Priestley and Magellan. While
+Watt was examining the constituent parts of water, he had
+opportunities of familiar intercourse not only with Priestley, but
+with Withering, Keir, Edgeworth, Galton, Darwin, and his own
+partner, Boulton--all men above the average for their common
+interest in scientific inquiries. Dr. Parr frequently attended their
+meetings, and they kept up a correspondence with Sir William
+Herschel, Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Solander, and Afzelius. Mrs.
+Schimmelpenninck, who was greatly given to physiognomical studies,
+has left us this picture of Watt at this period.
+
+"Mr. Boulton was a man to rule society with dignity; Mr. Watt, to
+lead the contemplative life of a deeply introverted and patiently
+observant philosopher. He was one of the most complete specimens of
+the melancholic temperament. His head was generally bent forward, or
+leaning on his hand in meditation; his shoulders stooping, and his
+chest falling in; his limbs lank and unmuscular, and his complexion
+sallow. His intellectual development was magnificent; comparison and
+causality immense, with large ideality and constructiveness,
+individuality, an enormous concentrativeness and caution.
+
+"He had a broad Scottish accent; gentle, modest, and unassuming
+manners; yet, when he entered a room, men of letters, men of
+science, nay, military men, artists, ladies, even little children,
+thronged round him. Ladies would appeal to him on the best means of
+devising grates, curing smoky chimneys, warming their houses, and
+obtaining fast colors. I can speak from experience of his teaching
+me how to make a dulcimer and improve a Jew's harp."
+
+In the year 1786, Watt and Boulton visited Paris, on the invitation
+of the French Government, to superintend the erection of certain
+steam-engines, and especially to suggest improvements in the great
+hydraulic machine of Marly, which Watt himself designates a
+"venerable" work. In Paris Watt made many acquaintances, including
+Lavoisier, Laplace, Fourcroy, and others scarcely less eminent; and
+while here he discussed with Berthollet a new method of _bleaching_
+by chlorides, an invention of the latter which Watt subsequently
+introduced into England.
+
+Meanwhile Watt had vigilantly to defend his patents at home, which
+were assailed by unworthy and surreptitious rivals as soon as it was
+proved that they were pecuniarily valuable. Some of the competing
+engines, as Watt himself described them, were simply asthmatic.
+"Hornblower's, at Radstock, was obliged to stand still once every
+ten minutes to snore and snort." "Some were like Evan's mill, _which
+was a gentlemanly mill_; it would go when it had nothing to do, but
+it refused to work." The legal proceedings, both in equity and at
+common law, which now became necessary, were numerous. One bill of
+costs, from 1796 to 1800, amounted to between £5,000 and £6,000; and
+the mental and bodily labor, the anxiety and vexation, which were
+superadded, involved a fearful tax on the province of Watt's
+discoveries.
+
+With the year 1800 came the expiration of the privilege of the
+patent of 1769, as extended by the statute of 1775; and also the
+dissolution of the original copartnership of Messrs. Boulton and
+Watt, then of five-and-twenty years' duration. The contract was
+renewed by their sons, the business having become so profitable that
+Watt and his children were provided with a source of independent
+income; and at the age of sixty-four the great inventor had
+personally realized some of the benefits he contemplated.
+
+Henceforth Watt's ingenuity became excursive, discretionary, almost
+capricious; but in every phase and form it continued to be
+beneficent. In 1808 he founded a prize in Glasgow College, as an
+acknowledgment of "the many favors that learned body had conferred
+upon him." In 1816 he made a donation to the town of Greenock, "to
+form the beginning of a scientific library" for the instruction of
+its young men. Nor, amid such donations, were others wanting on his
+part, such as true religion prescribes, to console the poor and
+relieve the suffering.
+
+In 1816, on a visit to Greenock, Watt made a voyage in a steamboat
+to Rothsay and back again. In the course of this experimental trip
+he pointed out to the engineer of the boat the method of "backing"
+the engine. With a foot-rule he demonstrated to him what he meant.
+Not succeeding, however, he at last, under the impulse of the ruling
+passion (and we must remember he was then eighty), threw off his
+overcoat, and putting his hand to the engine himself, showed the
+practical application of his lecture. Previously to this, the
+"backstroke" of the steamboat engine was either unknown or not
+generally known. The practice was to stop the engine entirely a
+considerable time before the vessel reached the point of mooring, in
+order to allow for the gradual and natural diminution of her speed.
+
+With regard to the application of steam power to _locomotion on
+land_, it is remarkable enough that, when Watt's attention was first
+directed, by his friend Robison, to the steam-engine, "he (Robison)
+at that time drew out an idea of applying the power to the moving of
+wheel-carriages." "But the scheme," adds Watt, "was not matured, and
+was soon abandoned on his going abroad."
+
+In 1769, however, when he heard that a linen-draper, one Moore, had
+taken out a patent for moving wheel-carriages by steam, he replied:
+"If linen-draper Moore does not use my engine to drive his chaises,
+he can't drive them by steam." In the specification of his patent of
+1784, he even described the principles and construction of
+"steam-engines which are applied to give motion to wheel-carriages
+for removing persons or goods, or other matters, from place to
+place," and in 1786, Watt himself had a steam-carriage "of some size
+under hand;" but his most developed plan was to move such carriages
+"on a hard smooth plane," and there is no evidence to show that he
+ever anticipated the union of the rail and wheel.
+
+Among Watt's mechanical recreations, soon after the date of the last
+of his steam-engine patents, were four plans of making lamps, which
+he describes in a letter to Argand; and for a long time lamps were
+made at Soho upon his principles, which gave a light surpassing,
+both in steadiness and brilliancy, anything of the kind that had
+appeared. About a year after, in 1788, he made "a pretty instrument
+for determining the specific gravities of liquids," having, he says
+to Dr. Black, improved on a hint he had taken.
+
+Watt also turned his "idle thoughts" toward the construction of an
+_arithmetical machine_, but he does not appear ever to have
+prosecuted this design further than by mentally considering the
+manner in which he could make it perform the processes of
+multiplication and division.
+
+Early in the present century Watt devised, for the Glasgow
+water-works, to bring pure spring-water across the Clyde, an
+articulated suction-pipe, with joints formed on the principle of
+those in a lobster's tail, and so made capable of accommodating
+itself to all the actual and possible bendings at the bottom of the
+river. This pipe was, moreover, executed at Soho from his plans, and
+was found to succeed perfectly.
+
+Watt describes, as his hobby, a _machine to copy sculpture_,
+suggested to him by an implement he had seen and admired in Paris in
+1802, where it was used for tracing and multiplying the dies of
+medals. He foresaw the possibility of enlarging its powers so as to
+make it capable of working even on wood and marble, to do for solid
+masses and in hard materials what his copying machine of 1782 had
+already done for drawings and writings impressed upon flat surfaces
+of paper--to produce, in fact, a perfect fac-simile of the original
+model. He worked at this machine most assiduously, and his "likeness
+lathe," as he termed it, was set up in a garret, which, with all its
+mysterious contents, its tools, and models included, have been
+carefully preserved as he left them.
+
+It is gratifying to find that the charm of Watt's presence was not
+dimmed by age. "His friends," says Lord Jeffrey, speaking of a visit
+which he paid to Scotland when upward of eighty, "in that part of
+the country never saw him more full of intellectual vigor and
+colloquial animation, never more delightful or more instructive." It
+was then also that Sir Walter Scott, meeting him "surrounded by a
+little band of northern literati," saw and heard what he felt he was
+never to see or hear again--"the alert, kind, benevolent old man,
+his talents and fancy overflowing on every subject, with his
+attention alive to everyone's question his information at everyone's
+command." Campbell, the poet, who saw him later, in the beginning
+of 1819 (he was then eighty-three), describes him as so full of
+anecdote, that he spent one of the most amusing days he had ever had
+with him. Lord Brougham, later still, in the summer of the same
+year, found his instructive conversation and his lively and even
+playful manner unchanged. But in the autumn of this year, on August
+19th, he expired tranquilly at his house at Heathfield. He was
+buried at Handsworth. A tribute to his memory was but tardily
+rendered by the nation.
+
+Jeffrey and Arago added more elaborate tributes to Watt's genius;
+and Wordsworth has declared that he looked upon him, considering his
+magnitude and universality, "as perhaps the most extraordinary man
+that this country has ever produced." His noblest monument is,
+however, his own work.
+
+
+
+
+DR. EDWARD JENNER
+
+By JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A.
+
+(1749-1823)
+
+[Illustration: Dr. Edward Jenner.]
+
+
+Few of the many thousand ills which human flesh is heir to, have
+spread such devastation among the family of man as small-pox. Its
+universality has ranged from the untold tribes of savages to the
+silken baron of civilization; and its ravages on life and beauty
+have been shown in many a sad tale of domestic suffering. To stay
+the destroying hand of such a scourge, which by some has been
+identified with the Plague of Athens, was reserved for Edward
+Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination.
+
+The great fact can, however, be traced half a century before
+Jenner's time. In the journal of John Byron, F.R.S., under date June
+3, 1725, it is recorded that: "At a meeting of the Royal Society,
+Sir Isaac Newton presiding, Dr. Jurin read a case of small-pox,
+where a girl who had been inoculated and had been vaccinated, was
+tried and had them not again; but another [a] boy, caught the
+small-pox from this girl, and had the confluent kind and died."
+
+This case occurred at Hanover. The inoculation of the girl seems to
+have failed entirely; it was suspected that she had not taken the true
+small-pox; doubts, however, were removed, as a boy, who daily saw the
+girl, fell ill and died, "having had a very bad small-pox of the
+confluent sort." This is the first use of the word _vaccination_, or,
+more familiarly, cow-pox, which is an eruption arising from the
+insertion into the system of matter obtained from the eruption on the
+teats and udders of cows, and especially in Gloucestershire; it is
+also frequently denominated _vaccine matter_; and the whole affair,
+inoculation and its consequences, is called vaccination, from the
+Latin _vacca_, a cow.
+
+It is admitted that Jenner's merit lay in the scientific application
+of his knowledge of the fact that the chapped hands of milkers of cows
+sometimes proved a preventive of small-pox, and from those of them
+whom he endeavored to inoculate resisting the infection. These results
+were probably known far beyond Jenner's range, and long before his
+time; for we have respectable testimony of their having come within
+the observation of a Cheshire gentleman, who had been informed of them
+shortly after settling on his estate in Prestbury parish, in or about
+1740. This does not in the least detract from Jenner's merit, but
+shows that to his genius for observation, analogy, and experiment, we
+are indebted for this application of a simple fact, only incidentally
+remarked by others, but by Jenner rendered the stepping-stone to his
+great discovery--or, in other words, extending its benefits from a
+single parish in Gloucestershire to the whole world.
+
+We agree with a contemporary, that, "among all the names which ought
+to be consecrated by the gratitude of mankind, that of Jenner stands
+pre-eminent. It would be difficult, we are inclined to say
+impossible, to select from the catalogue of benefactors to human
+nature an individual who has contributed so largely to the
+preservation of life, and to the alleviation of suffering. Into
+whatever corner of the world the blessing of printed knowledge has
+penetrated, there also will the name of Jenner be familiar; but the
+fruits of his discovery have ripened in barbarous soils, where books
+have never been opened, and where the savage does not pause to
+inquire from what source he has derived relief. No improvement in
+the physical sciences can bear a parallel with that which ministers
+in every part of the globe to the prevention of deformity, and, in a
+great proportion, to the exemption from actual destruction."
+
+The ravages which the small-pox formerly committed are scarcely
+conceived or recollected by the present generation. An instance of
+death occurring after vaccination is now eagerly seized and
+commented upon; yet seventy years have not elapsed since this
+disease might fairly be termed the scourge of mankind, and an enemy
+more extensive and more insidious than even the plague. A family
+blighted in its fairest hopes through this terrible visitation was
+an every-day spectacle: the imperial House of Austria lost eleven of
+its offspring in fifty years. This instance is mentioned because it
+is historical; but in the obscure and unrecorded scenes of life this
+pest was often a still more merciless intruder.
+
+Edward Jenner was the third son of the Vicar of Berkeley, in
+Gloucestershire, where he was born, May 17, 1749. Before he was nine
+years of age he showed a growing taste for natural history, in
+forming a collection of the nests of the dormouse; and when at
+school at Cirencester he was fond of searching for fossils, which
+abound in that neighborhood. He was articled to a surgeon at
+Sudbury, near Bristol, and at the end of his apprenticeship came to
+London, and studied under John Hunter, with whom he resided as a
+pupil for two years and formed a lasting friendship with that great
+man. In 1773 he returned to his native village, and commenced
+practice as a surgeon and apothecary, with great success.
+Nevertheless, he abstracted from the fatigues of country practice
+sufficient time to form a museum of specimens of comparative anatomy
+and natural history. He was much liked, was a man of lively and
+simple humor, and loved to tell his observation of nature in homely
+verse; and in 1788 he communicated to the Royal Society his curious
+paper on the cuckoo. At the same time he carried to London a drawing
+of the casual disease, as seen on the hands of the milkers, and
+showed it to Sir Everard Home and to others. John Hunter had alluded
+frequently to the fact in his lectures; Dr. Adams had heard of the
+cow-pox both from Hunter and Clive, and mentions it in his "Treatise
+on Poisons," published in 1795, three years previous to Jenner's own
+publication. Still, no one had the courage or the penetration to
+prosecute the inquiry except Jenner.
+
+Jenner now resolved to confine his practice to medicine, and
+obtained, in 1792, a degree of M.D. from the University of St.
+Andrew's.
+
+We now arrive at the great event of Jenner's life. While pursuing
+his professional education in the house of his master at Sudbury, a
+young countrywoman applied for advice; and the subject of small-pox
+being casually mentioned, she remarked she could not take the
+small-pox because she had had cow-pox; and he then learnt that it
+was a popular notion in that district, that milkers who had been
+infected with a peculiar eruption which sometimes occurred on the
+udder of the cow, were completely secure against the small-pox. The
+medical gentlemen of the district told Jenner that the security
+which it gave was not perfect; and Sir George Baker, the physician,
+treated it as a popular error. But Jenner thought otherwise; and
+although John Hunter and other eminent surgeons disregarded the
+subject, Jenner pursued it. He found at Berkeley that some persons,
+to whom it was impossible to give small-pox by inoculation, had had
+cow-pox; but that others who had had cow-pox yet received small-pox.
+This led to the doctor's discovery that the cow was subject to a
+certain eruption, which had the power of guarding from small-pox;
+and next, that it might be possible to propagate the cow-pox, and
+with it security from the small-pox, first from the cow to the human
+body, and thence from one person to another. Here, then, was an
+important discovery, that matter from the cow, intentionally
+inserted into the body, gave a slighter ailment than when received
+otherwise, and yet had the same effect of completely preventing
+small-pox. But of what advantage was it for mankind that the cows of
+Gloucestershire possessed a matter thus singularly powerful? How
+were persons living at a distance to derive benefit from this great
+discovery? Dr. Jenner, having inoculated several persons from a cow,
+took the matter from the human vesicles thus produced, and
+inoculated others, and others from them again; thus making it pass
+in succession through many individuals, and all with the same good
+effect in preventing small-pox.
+
+An opportunity occurred of making a trial of the latter on May 14,
+1796 (a day still commemorated by the annual festival at Berlin),
+when a boy, aged eight years, was vaccinated with matter from the
+hands of a milkmaid; the experiment succeeded, and he was inoculated
+for small-pox on July 1st following without the least effect. Dr.
+Jenner then extended his experiments, and in 1798 published his
+first memoir on the subject. He had originally intended to
+communicate his results to the Royal Society, but was admonished not
+to do so, lest it should injure the character which he had
+previously acquired among scientific persons by his paper on the
+natural history of the cuckoo. In the above work Dr. Jenner
+announces the security against small-pox afforded by the true
+cow-pox, and also traces the origin of that disease in the cow to a
+similar affection of the heel of the horse.
+
+The method, however, met with much opposition, until, in the
+following year, thirty-three leading physicians and forty eminent
+surgeons of London signed an earnest expression of their confidence
+in the efficacy of the cow-pox. The royal family of England exerted
+themselves to encourage Jenner; the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of
+York, the king, the Prince of Wales, and the queen bestowed great
+attention upon Jenner. The incalculable utility of cow-pox was at
+last evinced; and observation and experience furnished evidence
+enough to satisfy the Baillies and Heberdens, the Monros and
+Gregorys of Britain, as well as the physicians of Europe, India, and
+America. The new practice now began to supersede the old plan
+pursued by the Small-pox Hospital, which had been founded for
+inoculation. The two systems were each pursued until 1808, when the
+hospital governors discontinued small-pox inoculation.
+
+A committee of Parliament was now appointed to consider the claims
+of Jenner upon the gratitude of his country. It was clearly proved
+that he had converted into scientific demonstration a tradition of
+the peasantry. Two parliamentary grants, of £10,000 and £20,000,
+were voted to him. In 1808 the National Vaccine Establishment was
+formed by Government, and placed under his direction. Honors were
+profusely showered upon him by various foreign princes, as well as
+by the principal learned bodies of Europe.
+
+Dr. Jenner passed the remainder of his years principally at Berkeley
+and at Cheltenham, continuing to the last, his inquiries on the
+great object of his life. He died at Berkeley, in February, 1823, at
+the green old age of seventy-four: his remains lie in the chancel of
+the parish church of Berkeley. A marble statue by Sievier has been
+erected to his memory in the nave of Gloucester Cathedral; and
+another statue of him has been placed in a public building at
+Cheltenham. Five medals have been struck in honor of Jenner: three
+by the German nation; one by the surgeons of the British navy; and
+the fifth by the London Medical Society.
+
+[Illustration: The First Vaccination--Dr. Jenner.]
+
+Dr. Jenner was endowed with a rare quality of mind, which it may be
+both interesting and beneficial to sketch. A singular originality of
+thought was his leading characteristic. He appeared to have
+naturally inherited what in others is the result of protracted
+study. He seemed to think from originality of perception alone,
+and not from induction. He arrived by a glance at inferences which
+would have occupied the laborious conclusions of most men. In human
+and animal pathology, in comparative anatomy, and in geology, he
+perceived facts and formed theories instantaneously, and with a
+spirit of inventive penetration which distanced the slower
+approaches of more learned men. But if his powers of mind were
+singularly great, the qualities which accompanied them were still
+more felicitous. He possessed the most singular amenity of
+disposition with the highest feeling, the rarest simplicity united
+to the highest genius. In the great distinction and the superior
+society to which his discovery introduced him, the native cast of
+his character was unchanged. Among the great monarchs of Europe,
+who, when in Great Britain, solicited his acquaintance, he was the
+unaltered Dr. Jenner of his birthplace. In the other moral points of
+his character, affection, friendship, beneficence, and liberality
+were pre-eminent In religion, his belief was equally remote from
+laxity and fanaticism; and he observed to an intimate friend, not
+long before his death, that he wondered not that the people were
+ungrateful to him for his discovery, but he was surprised that they
+were ungrateful to God for the benefits of which he was the humble
+means.
+
+
+
+
+ROBERT FULTON[8]
+
+         [Footnote 8: Copyright, 1864, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By OLIVER OPTIC
+
+(1765-1815)
+
+[Illustration: Robert Fulton.]
+
+
+Very few inventors have achieved success in giving to the world new
+or improved methods of carrying on the business of life without long
+and hard study, repeated experiments and failures, and trying
+struggles with opposing elements. Many have labored through long
+years of poverty and obscurity to dazzle their fellow-beings in the
+end by the triumph of genius. The idea of an inventor has almost
+become coupled with that of anxiety, patient or impatient waiting,
+trials, and hardships. They are usually enthusiasts in the special
+pursuit to which they devote themselves, and the coldness and
+incredulity of those whose approval they seek to win, wear heavily
+upon them. The chilling common-sense of men more practical than
+themselves overwhelms them.
+
+If the wonderful improvements of the present and the past age could
+be placed in comparison with the attempts, the struggles, to
+accomplish what has now been achieved, the list of failures would
+far outnumber that of successes. Many of those who have rendered
+priceless blessings to their own and after generations by the
+production of wonderful machines or methods from the fine fibre of
+their brains, were plundered and buffeted, even in the midst of
+their grand successes, to such a degree that it requires a lofty
+comprehension to determine whether their lives were triumphs or
+defeats. Sometimes the failure of one generation becomes the success
+of the next.
+
+Born the same year that gave Robert Fulton to the world was Eli
+Whitney, who really made "cotton king," so that the great staple of
+the South yielded millions upon millions of dollars to the planters;
+but he might have died a beggar, so far as his marvellous invention
+affected his fortunes. Before he had fully completed his machine for
+separating the seeds from the cotton, which only two persons had
+been permitted to see, his workshop was broken open, and it was
+stolen. His idea was incorporated in other machines before he had
+obtained his patent, though it was only his own that transmuted
+cotton into gold. False reports, the repudiation of contracts for
+royalties fairly made, the refusal of Congress, through Southern
+influence, to renew his patent, constant litigation to protect his
+rights, harassed his life, and robbed him of the pecuniary results
+of his success. Defeated, he gave up the battle, devoted his
+attention to the manufacture of firearms, and finally made a fortune
+in this business. Fulton's experience was not very different.
+
+On the other hand, important discoveries in methods and mechanical
+appliances have been made by accident, as it were, and fortunes
+accrued from very little labor or study; but these are the
+exceptions rather than the rule.
+
+It would be difficult to estimate the influence upon the prosperity
+of the United States of steam-navigation. It came but a few years
+after the organization of the Federal Government, when the greater
+portion of the territorial extent of the country was a wilderness,
+and preceded the general use of railroads by a quarter of a century.
+Transportation on the inland waters of the nation was slow,
+difficult, and expensive, and the introduction of the steamboat upon
+its great lakes and rivers, notably upon the latter, was a new era
+in its history. On the great streams of the West flatboats floated
+for weeks, laden with the productions of the States, on their way to
+a market, where days or hours are sufficient at the present time.
+Between the metropolis of the nation and the capital of New York,
+the sloops, which were the only means of communication by water,
+required an average of four days to make the trip of about one
+hundred and fifty miles, while to-day it is accomplished in half a
+day or less.
+
+Now all the navigable rivers of the country are alive with
+steamboats, and the growth and development of the States have been
+mainly indebted to the introduction of steam navigation. On the
+great lakes, though more available for transportation by means of
+sailing vessels, the same powerful agency has achieved wonders, and
+all of them are now covered by lines of steamers, by which, either
+as tow-boats or independent vessels, a large proportion of the
+inland commerce of the nation is carried on. On the ocean the result
+of the introduction of steam-navigation is even more impressive, and
+nations separated by thousands of miles of rolling billows now join
+hands, as it were, with hearts commercially united, if not more
+intimately, through the medium of peace-giving commerce, of which
+thousands of gigantic steamers are the angel-messengers. On the
+Atlantic a score or more of them leave the one side for the other
+every week, and at the present time a merchant may breakfast in New
+York on Saturday, and dine in London the next Saturday.
+
+It is now conceded, both in Europe and America, that the world is
+indebted to Robert Fulton for the practical application of steam to
+the purposes of navigation. Whatever has been claimed for or by
+others in regard to the priority of the invention or application of
+the mighty power of steam to the propulsion of vessels, Fulton was
+"the first to apply it with any degree of practical success," as an
+English work states it. As one who labored for years over the idea
+which came from his own brain, though it also came to others, who
+wellnigh sacrificed his own life in its improvement, and who
+achieved the crowning glory of its utility, he is certainly entitled
+to be regarded and honored as the Father of Steam-Navigation.
+
+Robert Fulton was born in a small village near Lancaster, in the
+State of Pennsylvania, in the year 1765. He was the son of a poor
+man of Scotch-Irish descent, who died when his son was only three
+years old. He obtained only a common-school education, which he
+afterward increased by his own efforts. He early manifested a taste
+for, and considerable skill in, drawing and painting, and he
+selected this art as his profession, though he was more inclined to
+mechanical occupations, and spent his leisure hours in the shops of
+the workmen in his vicinity. He was somewhat precocious in his
+development, and at the age of seventeen he established himself as a
+portrait painter. He could hardly have attained to any high standard
+in art, though it appears that he had considerable success in his
+occupation, for at the age of twenty-one he had purchased a small
+farm in the western part of the State, where he placed his mother,
+indicating that he had a proper filial regard for the welfare of his
+remaining parent. It was evident from this success that he had
+decided talent and that it attracted the attention of others.
+
+He was advised to visit England and place himself under the tuition
+of Benjamin West, the eminent American painter, who had achieved
+distinguished success in art. He followed this advice, was kindly
+received by the great artist, and remained as an inmate of his home
+for some years. In the palaces and mansions of the British nobility
+were treasured up many of the most noted pictures of the day and of
+the past. In order to see, study, and copy these, Fulton procured
+letters of introduction which gave him admission to these paintings.
+He resided for some time in the stately mansions of the Duke of
+Bridgewater and Earl Stanhope. Both of these peers were largely
+interested in making internal improvements in England, especially in
+promoting inland navigation by canals.
+
+The duke was the possessor of immense wealth, and he had invested
+largely in companies connected with the canal system. Through him
+Fulton became interested in the same subject, and his mechanical
+tastes and talent drew him in that direction. The result was that he
+abandoned his easel and became a civil engineer, a profession hardly
+known by that name in the early part of this century. Earl Stanhope
+was also of a mechanical turn of mind, and had projected some
+important enterprises. At that time he was engaged upon a scheme
+which afterward filled up so much of the existence of Fulton--the
+application of steam to navigation.
+
+The earl had devised a method of accomplishing the result, and had
+caused a small craft to be built which was to be propelled by a
+series of floats, by some compared to the paddles of a canoe, and by
+others to the feet of water-fowls. He described his plan to Fulton,
+who did not regard it as practicable, and stated plainly the reasons
+for his belief. The earl clung to his idea, highly as he appreciated
+the talents of the critic. The inventor resided at Birmingham about
+two years, and was employed in a subordinate capacity at his newly
+adopted profession for the greater portion of the time. In this city
+he made the acquaintance of Watt, who had developed the steam-engine
+from a mere pumping-machine to something near what it is at the
+present time.
+
+Fulton's inventive genius was exercised during his residence at
+Birmingham, and he devised an improvement of the machine for sawing
+marble, from which he reaped both honor and profit. He produced a
+machine for spinning flax, and for the manufacture of ropes, and
+also one for excavating canals or river bottoms, for which purpose
+many such are now in use. As an author he wrote a work on canals,
+and published a treatise on the same subject in a London paper. He
+had a plan for the use of inclined planes in changing the level of
+the water for boats on canals, in place of locks, after the manner
+of the Chinese, claiming that greater elevations could be overcome
+in this manner; but it was never adopted.
+
+In 1797 Fulton went to Paris, where he resided seven years, as the
+terrors of the French Revolution were passing away. At this period
+he had invented what is now called a torpedo, largely used in modern
+warfare for the protection of harbors. He devised a submarine boat
+to operate these destructive weapons, which was not a success. He
+demonstrated what he claimed for the torpedo in the destruction of a
+brig of two hundred tons; but he failed to procure the adoption of
+this more modern engine of warfare by either France or England, and
+he had the honor to be snubbed by Napoleon I. In 1806 he returned to
+New York, where he labored for the recognition and introduction of
+the torpedo. He was encouraged by Jefferson and Madison, and
+Congress appropriated money for experiments; but the naval officers
+reported against him, and nothing came of his efforts.
+
+In Paris he had made the acquaintance of Chancellor Livingston, then
+the American minister to France, who was interested in Fulton's
+work, and who soon entered into business relations with him in
+connection with it. He was a man of abundant fortune, while the
+inventor was comparatively poor; occupied an elevated social
+position, and was a person of great influence. He obtained a grant
+of the monopoly of steam-navigation from the State of New York.
+Fulton took out two patents for his invention; but unfortunately
+they were not adequate to his protection, for they covered only the
+application of the steam-engine to the turning of a crank in
+producing the rotary motion of the paddle-wheels.
+
+While in England Fulton had contracted with Watt for the building of
+such an engine as he desired, without stating the purpose for which
+it was to be used. This engine reached New York at about the same
+time as the inventor. He made his plans for the construction of the
+boat, which was to be of different form and proportions from
+ordinary vessels, and it was completed and fitted out with its
+engine during the year following his return. Not long before this
+event, when he found the sum of money Mr. Livingston had provided to
+complete the steamboat was nearly exhausted, Fulton attempted to
+sell an interest in his exclusive grant in order to raise funds to
+supply the deficiency; but so little faith existed in the success of
+his enterprise that he could find no one who had the courage to
+purchase it. But the vessel was finished, and a trial trip was made
+in her, to which gentlemen of science and general intelligence were
+invited, most of them, like the rest of the world, sceptics and
+unbelievers. A few minutes served to satisfy these men that the
+steamboat was a success, and that the problem of steam-navigation
+had been solved in its favor. It was the hour of Fulton's triumph.
+
+The strange craft, to which the name of Clermont had been given,
+soon made a trip to Albany, accomplishing the distance in thirty-two
+hours, or one-third of the average time of the sloops, and making
+the return in thirty. Doubters and cavillers were silenced, and
+regular trips were made till the ice closed the river for the
+season. During the winter the Clermont was lengthened to one hundred
+and forty feet, improved in many respects, gaudily painted, and
+looked upon as a "floating palace." Another steamboat, called the
+Car of Neptune, was built, and soon a contract for five more was
+placed. The practical triumph had been achieved, and from that small
+beginning has come forth the mighty steam-marine of the present
+time.
+
+Fulton was married to Miss Harriet Livingston, a niece of the
+Chancellor, and was the father of four children. His business
+affairs were in anything but a prosperous condition. The State of
+New Jersey contested his monopoly, which proved to have been
+unconstitutionally granted. Fitch, or his successors, who had made
+some successes in the same line, endeavored to supplant him, and his
+patents were worthless. He was embarrassed by constant litigation,
+and his last years were full of trials and anxiety. He died February
+24, 1815, at the age of fifty.
+
+[Signature: William S. Adams.]
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM WILBERFORCE
+
+(1759-1833)
+
+[Illustration: William Wilberforce.]
+
+
+William Wilberforce, whose name a heartfelt, enlightened, and
+unwearied philanthropy, directing talents of the highest order, has
+enrolled among those of the most illustrious benefactors of mankind,
+was born August 24, 1759, in Hull, England, where his ancestors had
+been long and successfully engaged in trade. By his father's death he
+was left an orphan at an early age. He received the chief part of his
+education at the grammar school of Pockington, in Yorkshire, and at
+St. John's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow-commoner
+about 1776 or 1777. When just of age, and apparently before taking his
+B.A. degree, he was returned for his native town at the general
+election of 1780. In 1784 he was returned again, but being also chosen
+member for Yorkshire he elected to sit for that great county, which he
+continued to represent until the year 1812, during six successive
+Parliaments. From 1812 to 1825, when he retired from Parliament, he
+was returned by Lord Calthorpe for the borough of Bramber. His
+politics were in general those of Mr. Pitt's party, and his first
+prominent appearance was in 1783, in opposition to Mr. Fox's India
+Bill. In 1786 he introduced and carried through the Commons a bill for
+the amendment of the criminal code, which was roughly handled by the
+Lord Chancellor, Thurlow, and rejected in the House of Lords without a
+division.
+
+At the time when Mr. Wilberforce was rising into manhood, the
+inquiry into the slave trade had engaged in a slight degree the
+attention of the public. To the Quakers belongs the high honor of
+having taken the lead in denouncing that unjust and unchristian
+traffic. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, during the life
+of Penn, the Quakers of Pennsylvania passed a censure upon it, and
+from time to time the Society of Friends expressed their
+disapprobation of the deportation of negroes, until, in 1761, they
+completed their good work by a resolution to disown all such as
+continued to be engaged in it. Occasionally the question was brought
+before magistrates, whether a slave became entitled to his liberty
+upon landing in England. In 1765 Granville Sharp came forward as the
+protector of a negro, who, having been abandoned and cast upon the
+world in disease and misery by his owner, was healed and assisted
+through the charity of Mr. Sharp's brother. Recovering his value
+with his health, he was claimed and seized by his master, and would
+have been shipped to the colonies, as many Africans were, but for
+the prompt and resolute interference of Mr. Sharp. In several
+similar cases the same gentleman came forward successfully; but the
+general question was not determined, or even argued, until 1772,
+when the celebrated case of the negro Somerset was brought before
+the Court of King's Bench, which adjudged, after a deliberate
+hearing, that in England the right of the master over the slave
+could not be maintained. The general question was afterward, in
+1778, decided still more absolutely by the Scotch Courts, in the
+case of Wedderburn _vs._ Knight. In 1783 an event occurred well
+qualified to rouse the feelings of the nation, and call its
+attention to the atrocities of which the slave trade was the cause
+and pretext. An action was brought by certain underwriters against
+the owners of the ship Zong, on the ground that the captain had
+caused 132 weak, sickly slaves to be thrown overboard for the
+purpose of claiming their value, for which the plaintiffs would not
+have been liable if the cargo had died a natural death. The fact of
+the drowning was admitted, and defended on the plea that want of
+water had rendered it necessary, though it appeared that the crew
+had not been put upon short allowance. It now seems incredible that
+no criminal proceeding should have been instituted against the
+perpetrators of this wholesale murder.
+
+In 1785 the Vice-chancellor of Cambridge proposed as the subject for
+the Bachelor's Prize Essay, the question, Is it allowable to enslave
+men without their consent? Thomas Clarkson, who had gained the prize
+in the preceding year, again became a candidate. Conceiving that the
+thesis, though couched in general terms, had an especial reference
+to the African slave trade, he went to London to make inquiries on
+the subject. Investigation brought under his view a mass of
+cruelties and abominations which engrossed his thoughts and shocked
+his imagination. By night and day they haunted him; and he has
+described in lively colors the intense pain which this composition,
+undertaken solely in the spirit of honorable rivalry, inflicted on
+him. He gained the prize, but found it impossible to discard the
+subject from his thoughts. In the succeeding autumn, after great
+struggles of mind, he resolved to give up his plan for entering the
+Church, and devoted time, health, and substance (to use his own
+words) to "seeing these calamities to an end." In sketching the
+progress of this great measure, the name of Wilberforce alone will
+be presented to view; and it is our duty, therefore, in the first
+place, to make honorable mention of him who first roused Wilberforce
+in the cause, and whose athletic vigor and indomitable perseverance
+surmounted danger, difficulties, fatigues, and discouragements which
+few men could have endured, in the first great object of collecting
+evidence of the cruelties habitually perpetrated in the slave trade.
+
+In the first stage of his proceedings, Mr. Clarkson, in the course
+of his application to members of Parliament, called on Mr.
+Wilberforce, who stated that "the subject had often employed his
+thoughts and was near his heart." He inquired into the authorities
+for the statements laid before him, and became not only convinced
+of, but impressed with, the paramount duty of abolishing so hateful
+a traffic. Occasional meetings of those who were alike interested
+were held at his house; and in May, 1787, a committee was formed, of
+which Wilberforce became the Parliamentary leader. Early in 1788 he
+gave notice of his intention to bring the subject before the House;
+but, owing to his severe indisposition, that task was ultimately
+undertaken by Mr. Pitt, who moved and carried a resolution, pledging
+the House in the ensuing session to enter on the consideration of
+the subject. Accordingly, May 12, 1789, Mr. Wilberforce moved a
+series of resolutions, founded on a report of the Privy Council,
+exposing the iniquity and cruelty of the traffic in slaves, the
+mortality which it occasioned among white as well as black men, and
+the neglect of health and morals by which the natural increase of
+the race in the West India islands was checked; and concluding with
+a declaration that if the causes by which that increase was checked
+were removed, no considerable inconvenience would result from
+discontinuing the importation of African slaves. Burke, Pitt, and
+Fox supported the resolutions. Mr. Wilberforce's speech was
+distinguished by eloquence and earnestness, and by its unanswerable
+appeals to the first principles of justice and religion. The
+consideration of the subject was ultimately adjourned to the
+following session. In that, and in two subsequent sessions, the
+motions were renewed; and the effect of pressing such a subject upon
+the attention of the country was to open the eyes of many who would
+willingly have kept them closed, yet could not deny the existence of
+the evils so forced on their view. In 1792 Mr. Wilberforce's motion
+for the abolition of the slave trade was met by a proposal to insert
+in it the word "gradually;" and, in pursuance of the same policy,
+Mr. Dundas introduced a bill to provide for its discontinuance in
+1800. The date was altered to 1796, and in that state the bill
+passed the Commons, but was stopped in the Upper House by a proposal
+to hear evidence upon it. Mr. Wilberforce annually renewed his
+efforts, and brought every new argument to bear upon the question
+which new discoveries, or the events of the times, produced. In 1799
+the friends of the measure resolved on letting it repose for awhile,
+and for five years Mr. Wilberforce contented himself with moving for
+certain papers; but he took an opportunity of assuring the House
+that he had not grown cool in the cause, and that he would renew the
+discussion in a future session. On May 30, 1804, he once more moved
+for leave to bring in his bill for the abolition of the slave trade,
+in a speech of great eloquence and effect. He took the opportunity
+of making a powerful appeal to the Irish members, before whom, in
+consequence of the Union, this question was now for the first time
+brought, and the greater part of whom supported it. The decision
+showed a majority of 124 to 49 in his favor; and the bill was
+carried through the Commons, but was again postponed in the House of
+Lords. In 1805 he renewed his motion; but on this occasion it was
+lost in the Commons by over-security among the friends of the
+measure. But when Mr. Fox and Lord Granville took office in 1806,
+the abolition was brought forward by the ministers, most of whom
+supported it, though it was not made a government question in
+consequence of several members of the cabinet opposing it. The
+attorney-general (Sir A. Pigott) brought in a bill, which was passed
+into a law, prohibiting the slave trade in the conquered colonies,
+and excluding British subjects from engaging in the foreign slave
+trade; and Mr. Fox at Mr. Wilberforce's special request, introduced
+a resolution pledging the House to take the earliest measures for
+effectually abolishing the whole slave trade. This resolution was
+carried by a majority of 114 to 15; and January 2, 1807, Lord
+Granville brought forward, in the House of Lords, a bill for the
+abolition of the slave trade, which passed safely through both
+Houses of Parliament. As, however, the king was believed to be
+unfriendly to the measure, some alarm was felt by its friends, lest
+its fate might still be affected by the dismissal of the ministers,
+which had been determined upon. Those fears were groundless; for
+though they received orders to deliver up the seals of their offices
+on March 25th, the royal assent was given by commission by the Lord
+Chancellor Erskine on the same day; and thus the last act of the
+administration was to conclude a contest, maintained by prejudice
+and interest during twenty years, for the support of what Mr. Pitt
+denominated "the greatest practical evil that ever afflicted the
+human race."
+
+Among other testimonies to Mr. Wilberforce's merits, we are not
+inclined to omit that of Sir James Mackintosh, who in his journal,
+May 23, 1808, speaks thus of Wilberforce on the "Abolition." This
+refers to a pamphlet on the slave trade which Mr. Wilberforce had
+published in 1806: "Almost as much enchanted by Mr. Wilberforce's
+book as by his conduct. He is the very model of a reformer. Ardent
+without turbulence, mild without timidity or coolness; neither
+yielding to difficulties nor disturbed or exasperated by them;
+patient and meek yet intrepid; persisting for twenty years through
+good report and evil report; just and charitable even to his most
+malignant enemies; unwearied in every experiment to disarm the
+prejudices of his more rational and disinterested opponents, and
+supporting the zeal, without dangerously exciting the passions of
+his adherents."
+
+The rest of Mr. Wilberforce's parliamentary conduct was consistent
+with his behavior on this question. In debates chiefly political he
+rarely took a forward part; but where religion and morals were
+directly concerned, points on which few cared to interfere, and
+where a leader was wanted, he never shrunk from the advocacy of his
+opinions. He was a supporter of Catholic emancipation and
+parliamentary reform; he condemned the encouragement of gambling, in
+the shape of lotteries established by government; he insisted on the
+cruelty of employing boys of tender age as chimney-sweepers; he
+attempted to procure a legislative enactment against duelling, after
+the hostile meeting between Pitt and Tierney; and on the renewal of
+the East India Company's charter in 1816, he gave his zealous
+support to the propagation of Christianity in Hindostan, in
+opposition to those who, as has been more recently done in the West
+Indies, represented the employment of missionaries to be
+inconsistent with the preservation of the British empire. It is
+encouraging to observe that, with the exception of the one levelled
+against duelling, all these measures, however violently opposed and
+unfairly censured, have been carried in a more or less perfect form.
+
+As an author, Mr. Wilberforce's claim to notice is chiefly derived
+from his treatise entitled "A Practical View of the Prevailing
+Religious System of Professing Christians in the Higher and Middle
+Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity." The
+object of it was to show that the standard of life generally adopted
+by those classes not only fell short of, but was inconsistent with,
+the doctrines of the gospel. It has justly been applauded as a work
+of no common courage, not from the asperity of its censures, for it
+breathes throughout a spirit of gentleness and love, but on the
+joint consideration of the unpopularity of the subject and the
+writer's position. The Bishop of Calcutta, in his introductory
+essay, justly observes that "the author, in attempting it, risked
+everything dear to a public man and a politician as such,
+consideration, weight, ambition, reputation." And Scott, the divine,
+one of the most fearless and ardent of men, viewed the matter in the
+same light; for he wrote: "Taken in all its probable effects, I do
+sincerely think such a stand for vital Christianity has not been
+made in my memory. He has come out beyond my expectations." Of a
+work so generally known we shall not describe the tendency more at
+large. It is said to have gone through about twenty editions in
+Britain, since the publication in 1797, and more in America; and to
+have been translated into most European languages.
+
+In the discharge of his parliamentary duties, Mr. Wilberforce was
+punctual and active beyond his apparent strength; and those who
+further recollect his diligent attendance on a vast variety of
+public meetings and committees connected with religious and
+charitable purposes, will wonder how a frame naturally weak should
+so long have endured the wear of such exertion. In 1788, when his
+illness was a matter of deep concern to the Abolitionists, Dr.
+Warren said that he had not stamina to last a fortnight. No doubt
+his bodily powers were greatly aided by the placid and happy frame
+of mind which he habitually enjoyed; but it is important to relate
+his own opinion, as delivered by an ear-witness, on the physical
+benefits which he derived from a strict abstinence from temporal
+affairs on Sundays: "I have often heard him assert that he never
+could have sustained the labor and stretch of mind required in his
+early political life, if it had not been for the rest of his
+Sabbath; and that he could name several of his contemporaries in the
+vortex of political cares, whose minds had actually given way under
+the stress of intellectual labor so as to bring on a premature death
+or the still more dreadful catastrophe of insanity and suicide, who,
+humanly speaking, might have been preserved in health, if they would
+but conscientiously have observed the Sabbath."
+
+In 1797 Mr. Wilberforce married Miss Spooner, daughter of an eminent
+banker at Birmingham. Four sons survived him. He died, after a
+gradual decline, July 29, 1833, in Cadogan Place. He directed that
+his funeral should be conducted without the smallest pomp; but his
+orders were disregarded, in compliance with a memorial addressed to
+his relatives by many of the most distinguished men of all parties,
+and couched in the following terms: "We, the undersigned Members of
+both Houses of Parliament, being anxious, upon public grounds, to
+show our respect for the memory of the late William Wilberforce, and
+being also satisfied that public honors can never be more fitly
+bestowed than upon such benefactors of mankind, earnestly request
+that he may be buried in Westminster Abbey, and that we and others
+who may agree with us in these sentiments may have permission to
+attend his funeral." The attendance of both Houses was numerous. Mr.
+Wilberforce was interred within a few yards of his great
+contemporaries, Pitt, Fox, and Canning.
+
+
+
+
+SIR HUMPHRY DAVY
+
+By JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A.
+
+(1778-1829)
+
+[Illustration: Sir Humphry Davy.]
+
+
+The boyhood of Davy has been sketched in some of the most
+fascinating pieces of biography ever written: the annals of science
+do not furnish us with any record that equals the school-days and
+self-education of the boy, Humphry, in popular interest; and, unlike
+many bright mornings, this commencement in a few years led to a
+brilliant meridian, and, by a succession of discoveries,
+accomplished more in relation to change of theory and extension of
+science, than in the most ardent and ambitious moments of youth he
+could either hope to effect or imagine possible.
+
+Humphry Davy was born at Penzance, in 1778; was a healthy, strong,
+and active child, and could speak fluently before he was two years
+old; copied engravings before he learned to write, and could recite
+part of the "Pilgrim's Progress" before he could well read it. At
+the age of five years, he could gain a good account of the contents
+of a book while turning over the leaves; and he retained this
+remarkable faculty through life. He excelled in telling stories to
+his playmates; loved fishing, and collecting, and painting birds and
+fishes; he had his own little garden; and recorded his impressions
+of romantic scenery in verse of no ordinary merit. To his
+self-education, however, he owed almost everything. He studied with
+intensity mathematics, metaphysics, and physiology; before he was
+nineteen he began to study chemistry, and in four months proposed a
+new hypothesis on heat and light, to which he won over the
+experienced Dr. Beddoes. With his associate, Gregory Watt (son of
+the celebrated James Watt) he collected specimens of rocks and
+minerals. He made considerable progress in medicine; he experimented
+zealously, especially on the effects of the gases in respiration; at
+the age of twenty-one he had breathed nitrous oxide, and nearly lost
+his life from breathing carburetted hydrogen. Next year he commenced
+the galvanic experiments which led to some of his greatest
+discoveries. In 1802 he began his brilliant scientific career at the
+Royal Institution, where he remained till 1812; here he constructed
+his great voltaic battery of 2,000 double plates of copper and zinc,
+and commenced the mineralogical collection now in the Museum. His
+lectures were often attended by one thousand persons: his youth, his
+simplicity, his natural eloquence, his chemical knowledge, his happy
+illustrations and well-conducted experiments, and the auspicious
+state of science, insured Davy great and instant success.
+
+The enthusiastic admiration with which he was hailed can hardly be
+imagined now. Not only men of the highest rank--men of science, men of
+letters, and men of trade--but women of fashion and blue-stockings,
+old and young, pressed into the theatre of the Institution to cover
+him with applause. His greatest labors were his discovery of the
+decomposition of the fixed alkalies, and the re-establishment of the
+simple nature of chlorine; his other researches were the investigation
+of astringent vegetables in connection with the art of tanning; the
+analysis of rocks and minerals in connection with geology; the
+comprehensive subject of agricultural chemistry; and galvanism and
+electro-chemical science. He was also an early, but unsuccessful,
+experimenter in the photographic art.
+
+Of the lazy conservative spirit and ludicrous indolence in science,
+which at this time attempted to hoodwink the public, a quaint
+instance is recorded of a worthy professor of chemistry at Aberdeen.
+He had allowed some years to pass since Davy's brilliant discovery
+of potassium and its congeneric metals, without a word about them in
+his lectures. At length the learned doctor was concussed by his
+colleagues on the subject, and he condescended to notice it. "Both
+potash and soda are now said to be metallic oxides," said he; "the
+oxides, in fact, of two metals, called potassium and sodium by the
+discoverer of them, one Davy, in London, a verra troublesome person
+in chemistry."
+
+Turn we, however, to the brightest event in our chemical
+philosopher's career. By his unrivalled series of practical
+discoveries, Davy acquired such a reputation for success among his
+countrymen, that his aid was invoked on every great occasion. The
+properties of fire-damp, or carburetted hydrogen, in coal-mines had
+already been ascertained by Dr. Henry. When this gas is mingled in
+certain proportions with atmospheric air, it forms a mixture which
+kindles upon the contact of a lighted candle, and often explodes
+with tremendous violence, killing the men and horses, and projecting
+much of the contents of the mine through the shafts or apertures
+like an enormous piece of artillery. At this time, a detonation of
+fire-damp occurred within a coal-mine in the north of England, so
+dreadful that it destroyed more than a hundred miners. A committee
+of the proprietors besought our chemist to provide a method of
+preparing for such tremendous visitations; and he did it. He tells
+us that he first turned his attention particularly to the subject in
+1815; but he must have been prepared for it by the researches of his
+early years. Still, there appeared little hope of finding an
+efficacious remedy. The resources of modern mechanical science had
+been fully applied in ventilation. The comparative lightness of
+fire-damp was well understood; every precaution was taken to
+preserve the communications open; and the currents of air were
+promoted or occasioned, not only by furnaces, but likewise by
+air-pumps and steam apparatus. We may here mention that, for giving
+light to the coal-miner or pitman, where the fire-damp was
+apprehended, the primitive contrivance was a steel-mill, the light
+of which was produced by contact of a flint with the edge of a wheel
+kept in rapid motion. A "safety-lamp" had already, in 1813, been
+constructed by Dr. Clanny, the principle of which was forcing in air
+through water by bellows; but the machine was ponderous and
+complicated, and required a boy to work it. M. Humboldt had
+previously, in 1796, constructed a lamp for mines upon the same
+principle as that of Dr. Clanny.
+
+Davy, having conceived that flame and explosion may be regulated and
+arrested, began a minute chemical examination of fire-damp. He found
+that carburetted-hydrogen gas, even when mixed with fourteen times
+its bulk of atmospheric air, was still explosive. He ascertained
+that explosions of inflammable gases were incapable of being passed
+through long, narrow metallic tubes; and that this principle of
+security was still obtained by diminishing their length and diameter
+at the same time, and likewise diminishing their length and
+increasing their number, so that a great number of small apertures
+would not pass explosion when their depth was equal to their
+diameter. This fact led to trials upon sieves of wire-gauze; he
+found that if a piece of wire-gauze was held over the flame of a
+lamp, or coal-gas, it prevented the flame from passing; and he
+ascertained that a flame confined in a cylinder of very fine
+wire-gauze did not explode even in a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen,
+but that the gases burned in it with great vivacity. These
+experiments served as the basis of the safety-lamp.
+
+Sir Humphry Davy presented his first communication respecting his
+discovery of the safety-lamp to the Royal Society in 1815. This was
+followed by a series of papers, crowned by that read on January 11,
+1816, when the principle of the safety-lamp was announced, and Sir
+Humphry presented to the society a model made by his own hands,
+which is to this day preserved in the collection of the Royal
+Society at Burlington House.
+
+There have been several modifications of the safety-lamp, and the
+merit of the discovery has been claimed by others, among whom was
+Mr. George Stephenson; but the question was set at rest in 1817 by
+an examination, attested by Sir Joseph Banks, P.R.S., Mr. Brande,
+Mr. Hatchett, and Dr. Wollaston, and awarding the independent merit
+to Davy.
+
+It should be explained that Stephenson's lamp was formed on the
+principle of admitting the fire-damp by narrow tubes, and "in such
+small detached portions that it would be consumed by combustion."
+The two lamps were doubtless distinct inventions; though Davy, in
+all justice, appears to be entitled to precedence, not only in point
+of date, but as regards the long chain of inductive reasoning
+concerning the nature of flame by which his result was arrived at.
+
+Meanwhile, the Report by the Parliamentary Committee "cannot admit
+that the experiments (made with the lamp) have any tendency to
+detract from the character of Sir Humphry Davy, or to disparage the
+fair value placed by himself upon his invention. The improvements
+are probably those which longer life and additional facts would have
+induced him to contemplate as desirable, and of which, had he not
+been the inventor, he might have become the patron."
+
+"I value it," Davy used to say, with the kindliest exultation, "more
+than anything I ever did; it was the result of a great deal of
+investigation and labor; but if my directions be attended to, it
+will save the lives of thousands of poor men."
+
+The principle of the invention may be thus summed up: In the
+safety-lamp, the mixture of the fire-damp and atmospheric air within
+the cage of wire-gauze explodes upon coming in contact with the
+flame; but the combustion cannot pass through the wire-gauze; and
+being there imprisoned, cannot impart to the explosive atmosphere of
+the mine any of its force. This effect has been attributed to the
+cooling influence of the metal; but, since the wires may be brought
+to a degree of heat but little below redness without igniting the
+fire-damp, this does not appear to be the cause.
+
+Professor Playfair has elegantly characterized the safety-lamp of
+Davy as a present from philosophy to the arts, a discovery in no
+degree the effect of accident or chance, but the result of patient
+and enlightened research, and strongly exemplifying the great use of
+an immediate and constant appeal to experiment. After characterizing
+the invention as the _shutting-up in a net of the most slender
+texture_ of a most violent and irresistible force, and a power that
+in its tremendous effects seems to emulate the lightning and the
+earthquake, Professor Playfair thus concludes: "When to this we add
+the beneficial consequences, and the saving of the lives of men, and
+consider that the effects are to remain as long as coal continues to
+be dug from the bowels of the earth, it may be fairly said that
+there is hardly in the whole compass of art or science a single
+invention of which one would rather wish to be the author.... This,"
+says Professor Playfair, "is exactly such a case as we should choose
+to place before Bacon, were he to revisit the earth; in order to
+give him, in a small compass, an idea of the advancement which
+philosophy has made since the time when he had pointed out to her
+the route which she ought to pursue."
+
+Honors were showered upon Davy. He received from the Royal Society
+the Copley, Royal, and Rumford Medals, and several times delivered
+the Bakerian Lecture. He also received Napoleon's prize for the
+advancement of galvanic researches from the French Institute. The
+invention of the safety-lamp brought him the public gratitude of the
+united colliers of Whitehaven, of the coal proprietors of the north
+of England, of the grand jury of Durham, of the Chamber of Commerce
+at Mons, of the coal-miners of Flanders, and, above all, of the
+coal-owners of the Wear and the Tyne, who presented him (it was his
+own choice) with a dinner-service of silver worth £2,500. On the
+same occasion, Alexander, the Emperor of all the Russias, sent him a
+vase, with a letter of commendation. In 1817, he was elected to the
+dignity of an associate of the Institute of France; next year, at
+the age of forty, he was created a baronet.
+
+Davy's discoveries form a remarkable epoch in the history of the
+Royal Society during the early part of this century; and from 1821
+to 1829 almost every volume of the _Transactions_ contains a
+communication by him. He was president of the Royal Society from
+1820 to 1827.
+
+Fond of travel, geology, and sport, Davy visited, for the purpose of
+mineralogy and angling, almost every county of England and Wales. He
+was provided with a portable laboratory, that he might experiment
+when he chose, as well as fish and shoot. In 1827, upon resigning
+the presidency of the Royal Society, he retired to the continent; in
+1829, at Geneva, his palsy-stricken body returned to the dust. They
+buried him at Geneva, where a simple monument stands at the head of
+the hospitable grave. There is a tablet to his memory in Westminster
+Abbey; there is a monument at Penzance; and his widow founded a
+memorial chemical prize in the University of Geneva. His public
+services of plate, his imperial vases, his foreign prizes, his royal
+medals, shall be handed down with triumph to his collateral
+posterity as trophies won from the depths of nescience; but his
+work, designed by his own genius, executed by his own hand, tracery
+and all, and every single stone signalized by his own private mark,
+indelible, characteristic, and inimitable--his work is the only
+record of his name. How deeply are its foundations rooted in space,
+and how lasting its materials for time!
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL SAN MARTIN[9]
+
+         [Footnote 9: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH
+
+(1778-1850)
+
+    "Seras lo que debes ser,
+  Y sino, no seras nada."
+            SAN MARTIN.
+
+
+San Martin, the ideal liberator of South America from the long and
+tyrannical rule of Spanish viceroys, was one of the most remarkable
+men of his own or of any age. From a moral point of view he stands
+in the first rank of the world's heroes. "He was not a man," said a
+student of South American history, "he was a mission." Cincinnatus,
+after serving the state, returned to the plough, and Washington to
+the retirement of Mt. Vernon; but San Martin for the peace of his
+country went into voluntary exile. His country crowned him dead and
+made for his dead body a tomb of Peace, surrounded by the marble
+angels of the arts of human progress, more beautiful in its meaning
+than any tomb on the Appian Way, and one of the most wonderful
+memorials on earth.
+
+The Battle of Maipú, of which San Martin was the victor, completed
+the emancipation of South America, and made the achievements of
+Bolivar easy in the Northern Andes. Said the hero of Maipú--and what
+words of man under the circumstances ever equalled the declaration
+in moral sublimity!--
+
+"The presence of a fortunate general, however disinterested he may
+be, is dangerous to a newly founded state. I have achieved the
+independence of Peru: I have ceased to be a public man!" He died at
+Boulogne, France, in poverty, after nearly thirty years of exiled
+and fameless life. His career seems like that of some hero of
+fiction, such as the imagination of a Plato, a Bacon, or a Sir
+Thomas More might create for an Utopia. He is the one perfectly
+unselfish man in history, and his fame has grown steadily in Spanish
+America, since Argentina built a tomb-palace for his remains, and
+decreed for him one of the most splendid funerals ever known to the
+Western World.
+
+General Don Joachim de la Pezuela, the last Spanish ruler of Peru,
+was the forty-fourth viceroy from Pizarro. "The Indians," he said,
+"love the memory of the Incas--the country is ready to rise." The
+banner of Argentina was putting to flight the condors of the Andes,
+and the last viceroy saw in its advance the end of Spain in the New
+World.
+
+The Argentine hero who had created the army of the Andes for
+universal liberty was San Martin. He was born on February 25, 1778,
+at Yapeyu, in Misiones. His father was a South American officer
+under the last rule of the viceroys. The family removed to Spain in
+his boyhood, and he became for two years a pupil in the Seminary of
+Nobles, at Madrid. At the age of twelve he became a cadet, wearing a
+uniform of blue and white, which he made in manhood the colors of
+South American emancipation.
+
+He fought in the war against the Moors, and in the campaign against
+France, in 1793. In 1800 he took part in the so-called "War of the
+Oranges against Portugal."
+
+In the early part of the nineteenth century there began to be formed
+in Spain secret societies for the purpose of advancing the cause of
+liberty and human progress. One of these associations, called
+_Caballeros Racionales_, became very influential, and corresponded
+with the society of the Grand Reunion of America (_Gran Reunion
+Americana_) of London. This society was pledged "to recognize no
+government in America as legitimate unless it was elected by the
+free will of the people." San Martin joined this society. The London
+society was established by Miranda, the Spanish patriot, a friend of
+Bolivar, by whose inspirations San Martin became a disciple of
+liberty, and whose dreams he fulfilled long after the patriot was
+dead.
+
+San Martin won honors and a medal in the Spanish resistance to the
+victorious eagles of Napoleon. In that campaign he fought under a
+banner of the Sun, having this motto in Latin: "We bear this aloft
+dispersing the clouds." He made this banner the flag of the army of
+the Andes.
+
+In 1812, San Martin, as a disciple of the principles of the Spanish
+apostle of liberty, Miranda, returned to South America, and in March
+went to Buenos Ayres, and offered his sword to the Argentine
+patriots for the cause of independence. The country was in
+revolution against the Spanish rule. San Martin was not only an
+American, but a Creole; he was unselfish, truthful, the soul of
+honor, and of all men in the world the one that would seem best
+fitted to lead the cause of the South American patriots. He was
+destined to become "the greatest of the Creoles of the New World."
+
+Soon after the arrival of San Martin in Buenos Ayres he married Doña
+Remedios Esculada, and Mercedes, a daughter of this marriage, shared
+with him his voluntary exile after the conquest of Peru.
+
+Appointed at once to a high military position under the Argentine
+Government, he conceived the plan of creating an army of the Andes,
+of crossing the Cordillera, and of driving the Spaniards from Chile.
+
+Mendoza, with which Buenos Ayres is now connected by railroad, lies
+on an elevation under the snowy Cordilleras. San Martin made his
+military camp here. On January 17, 1817, he began his march up the
+Andes, one of the most perilous achievements of modern warfare. The
+summit of the Uspallata Pass, over which the army was to climb, is
+12,500 feet above the level of the sea, or 4,000 feet higher than
+the Pass of St. Bernard.
+
+The 17th, on which the army set forth, was a high holiday in
+Mendoza. The plaza was gay with banners, and the streets with
+patriotic decorations. The ladies of the city presented an
+embroidered flag to San Martin. The general, above whose head
+gleamed the snowy heights of the Andes, ascended a platform in the
+plaza, and waved this flag over his head, and shouted:
+
+"Soldiers, behold the first flag of independence!"
+
+There arose a great shout of "Viva la Patria!"
+
+"Soldiers, swear to sustain it."
+
+"We swear," answered the army, as one man.
+
+Salvos of musketry and artillery followed. Mitre, in his "Life of
+San Martin," as presented to us in the condensed translation of
+Pilling, eloquently says that this flag rose "for the redemption of
+one-half of South America, passed the Cordilleras, waved in triumph
+along the Pacific coast, floated over the foundations of two new
+republics, aided in the liberation of another, and after sixty-four
+years served as a funeral pall to the body of the hero, who thus
+delivered it to the care of the immortal Army of the Andes."
+
+The mountains rose above the departing army, piercing the sky in the
+fading day. Up they climbed, putting to flight the condors. The men
+suffered greatly from the rarefaction of the air. Even many of the
+animals of the expedition perished. Out of 9,261 mules, only 4,300
+ever reached Chile.
+
+"What spoils my sleep," said San Martin, on surveying the Andes at
+the outset of the expedition, "is not the strength of the enemy, but
+how to pass those immense mountains." He might well say that, for
+before him gleamed peaks 21,000 feet high.
+
+The army, with all its sufferings, triumphantly crossed the lower
+passes of the Cordilleras, and entered Chile. This march decided the
+fate of South America.
+
+The army encamped upon the Sierra of Chacubuco, from the summit of
+which the whole of the magnificent country could be seen. Here rose
+the flag of liberation. The flower of the Spanish army, inferior in
+numbers, was near. On February 12th a battle was fought, and the
+royalists were defeated with a loss of 500 men killed, 600 taken
+prisoners, and all of their artillery.
+
+The way was now open to Santiago, the capital. The army entered the
+city amid the acclamations of the people. The Chilian assembly met
+and offered San Martin the office of governor, with dictatorial
+power. But San Martin was not fighting for power, or honor, but for
+the liberties of his countrymen, and he nobly declined the office.
+
+The guns of Buenos Ayres roared, and the city was turned into a
+festival when the news of the triumph of the army of the Andes
+reached the coast. The Argentine Government offered to bestow on San
+Martin its highest honors, but the latter declined them, lest his
+work should be retarded and his motives of life should be
+misconstrued. It awarded to his daughter a life pension, which he
+devoted to her education.
+
+Santiago offered to him 10,000 ounces of gold. He refused the
+splendid purse which he had so well won, but recommended that the
+money be used for the cause of popular education in the form of a
+public library.
+
+Chile and Argentina now formed an alliance in defence of their
+liberties.
+
+But the royal army was gathering force and unity. On March 31st, it
+numbered 5,500 men, and was prepared to make a final stand against
+the army of liberation.
+
+There is a river in Chile which divides the country, named the
+Maipó, or Maipú. On its banks the royal army encamped on the first
+days of April, 1818. The patriot army was close at hand, and each
+army felt that the battle to follow would decide the fate of the
+movement for the independence of the South American empire.
+
+It is April 5, 1818. The royal army is ready for action, and the
+patriots occupy the heights of Loma Blanca, overlooking the plains
+of the Maipú.
+
+"Do not await a charge to-day," ordered San Martin; "_but charge_
+always within fifty paces!"
+
+At the beginning of the action he said,
+
+"I take the sun to witness that the day is ours."
+
+Just then the sun, which had been clouded, shone from the heavens.
+
+The royal army was defeated. That night of May 5th covered their
+flight, and the War of Independence was won.
+
+San Martin began now to plan the liberation of Peru, and to create a
+navy for the purpose of commanding the ports of the golden mountains
+and rich plateaus of the incarial realms.
+
+In August, 1820, he had gathered a patriot force of 4,500 men at
+Valparaiso, and was ready to embark for the conquest by sea. The
+army was composed of Argentines and Chilians. A former expedition
+had made the way of victory clear to the patriots. The fleet left
+Valparaiso August 21, 1820. The army landed in Peru and began
+operations near Lima.
+
+San Martin began his Chilian campaign by the liberation of the
+slaves, whom he afterward found trusty soldiers. He began the
+Peruvian war by issuing a most noble manifesto to his countrymen, in
+which he said: "Ever since I came back to my native land, the
+independence of Peru has been present in my mind."
+
+And again he grandly announced his future policy in nearly these
+words: "From the time that a government is established by the people
+of Peru, the army of the Andes will obey its orders."
+
+The army of liberation was as successful in Peru as in Chile. The
+empire of the viceroys crumbled and fell. Amid the roar of cannon,
+the shouts of the people, and strewing of flowers, the independence
+of Peru was proclaimed on July 20, 1821, in the great square of
+Lima. San Martin, as in Chile, was offered the supreme authority
+under the title of the Protector of Peru. He made use of the office
+merely for the pacification of the country. He convened the first
+Congress in Peru, and to the new government he addressed the words,
+or words like those, that we have quoted at the beginning of this
+article. He saw that Bolivar was the man to complete the liberation
+and bring about the unity of South America. The cause was all to
+him: he was nothing.
+
+To Bolivar he wrote: "My decision is irrevocable. I have convened
+the first Congress of Peru. The day of its installation I shall
+leave for Chile, convinced that my presence is the only obstacle
+that prevents you from coming to Peru."
+
+He sent to Bolivar a parting gift, saying, "Receive this memento
+from the first of your admirers, and with my desire that you have
+the glory of finishing the war for the independence of South
+America."
+
+The history of chivalry has no match for the character of San
+Martin. Bolivar united patriotism and vanity; San Martin's glory was
+self-abnegation. At a banquet where the two were present, Bolivar
+once offered the following toast: "To the two greatest men in South
+America--San Martin and _myself_."
+
+San Martin followed with his toast. "To the speedy end of the war;
+to the establishment of the republics, and to the health of the
+Liberator of Colombia!"
+
+The two toasts were photographs. Time is lifting the character of
+San Martin into its true place among glorious men. He was a man who
+fought for peace. His life fulfilled his own motto: "Thou shalt be
+what thou oughtest to be, or else thou shalt be nothing."
+
+On critical occasions, his magnanimous soul rose to the sublimity of
+this motto, and to the end of his life of glory and poverty he was
+always able to say, "I have been what I ought!"
+
+[Signature: Hezekiah Butterworth.]
+
+
+
+
+GEORGE STEPHENSON[10]
+
+         [Footnote 10: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By Professor C. M. WOODWARD
+
+(1781-1848)
+
+[Illustration: Steam engine.]
+
+
+Far in the north of England, near the Scottish border, by the shore
+of the German Ocean, is the county of brown and barren hills called
+Northumberland, and its principal city, Newcastle, famous for its
+coal. There is another Newcastle near the centre of England, so this
+one is often distinguished by the name "Newcastle-on-Tyne"--Tyne
+being the blackest and dirtiest of all rivers.
+
+A few miles from Newcastle, up the Tyne, is the little mining
+village of Wylam, where, a hundred years ago, lived Robert
+Stephenson and his wife Mabel. There was no style about Wylam, and
+few evidences of wealth or culture. The houses straggled about near
+the outlets of the coal-mines, and everything was as uninviting as
+it well could be. Stephenson's house, or rather "shanty," had but
+one room, and that had an earthen floor. Robert and Mabel were about
+as ill-furnished as their house; for neither could read, they had
+not a book nor a print, and neither knew much more of the world than
+could be seen, as they stood on the bank of the Tyne and looked
+about on the neighboring hills and down toward Newcastle. In 1892 I
+rode down the valley of the Tyne, past Wylam, through Newcastle, and
+over the high bridge that our fireman's grandson, Robert, built in
+later days. Few valleys are less attractive, and few seem less
+likely to be the birthplace of epoch-making men.
+
+Robert Stephenson, the father of our hero, was a fireman, earning
+two shillings a day. He was sober and industrious, but as would be
+expected, he never "got on." He was a good story-teller, and
+transmitted to his children healthy bodies and clear heads. George
+was the second of six children, and he was born June 9, 1781, during
+our war for independence. His boyhood was uneventful enough. When
+the weather was cold he was cooped up in their narrow home; he was
+out of doors whenever the weather would permit. He played in the
+street, ran errands, carried his father's dinner, and herded cows,
+as soon as he was big enough, for four cents per day. At fourteen he
+was assistant-fireman, earning twenty-five cents a day, and at
+seventeen he was "plugman." He was thus in contact with much that
+had been achieved in the way of building engines and transporting
+materials on cars. But I must describe the engines then in use, and
+explain what it was to be a "plugman."
+
+The coal-mines were so deep that, in spite of the valleys, they
+could be drained only by pumps, and it was often more difficult to
+keep the water out than it was to lift the coal out. The
+steam-engine was then in a very incomplete condition, and both
+pumping-and lifting-engines were crude and clumsy affairs. To be
+sure Watt, the mathematical instrument-maker, had invented the
+double-acting steam-engine, but few had been manufactured, and those
+in common use were "atmospheric" engines, known as "Newcomen's"
+engines. A pumping-engine had a long, vertical cylinder, with
+arrangements for admitting steam at the top. The weight of the
+piston, piston-rod, and pump-rod, which ran down a shaft to the
+lowest point in the mine, being balanced by a counter-weight on a
+sort of well-sweep, the steam, admitted by hand, forced the piston
+to the bottom of the cylinder. The steam was then shut off, and a
+spray of water was turned on within the cylinder. This water
+condensed the steam and reduced the pressure within to almost
+nothing, so that the air pressure on the exterior face of the piston
+(which amounted to over a ton for every square foot of surface)
+drove the piston to the top of the cylinder, and lifted the full
+length of the stroke a large quantity of water.
+
+It is evident that the office of engineer was not an easy one. It
+was all he could do to take care of the steam end of the pump;
+another man was needed to look after the lower end, where the
+pump-valve worked in another vertical cylinder. The water entered
+this cylinder through holes in the sides, some higher, some lower,
+according to the stage of water in the mine. The pumps did not run
+continuously, but they lowered the water to the bottom as often as
+it was necessary. As the level of the water in the mine fell, it was
+necessary to plug the upper holes in the pump cylinder; the man who
+watched the lower end and plugged those holes was known as the
+"plugman." It is difficult to conceive of a less inspiring
+occupation than that to which George Stephenson was promoted at the
+age of seventeen. Alone in the dark, chilled by the damp air, and
+wet by the black water, he was forced, by lack of other occupation,
+to note every mechanical detail of the machinery, and to study
+methods of improving it.
+
+At the age of eighteen he heard of some wonderful engines made by
+Watt & Boulton, at their new factory, and was told that the engines
+were fully described and illustrated in books. So he determined to
+learn to read. He was encouraged in this resolve by stories that a
+French soldier, by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, was sweeping
+everything before him on the continent of Europe, and that he was
+planning the subjugation of Great Britain. Information about
+Napoleon could be gained from printed newspapers if one could only
+read.
+
+But where should he learn? There was no public school in Wylam; none
+of our hero's companions went to school; none of the people he
+associated with could read or write. However, he found a teacher in
+a young man by the name of Robert Cowens, of whom he took three
+lessons per week in the evening. He earned money for books and
+instruction by mending shoes and repairing clocks. He was handy with
+tools, and quick at seeing the relations of things. As soon as he
+could read and write he learned to cipher, taking a slateful of
+"sums," set by his teacher, to his work in the morning, to be "done"
+during odd moments while watching his pump or engine, for he was
+soon advanced to the care of the steam end of the machine.
+
+While young Stephenson, now grown a man, is thus busy with his
+primer, his copy-book, and "four rules," let us reflect upon the
+uncanny circumstances of his early life. He had no luxuries, few
+real comforts. The people around him lived half the time underground
+in mines that were dark, damp, and dangerous--in constant war with
+water and a poisonous, explosive, natural gas, known as "fire-damp."
+Above ground there was little that was attractive or educative. The
+young men had their games, at which George was fairly successful,
+for he was strong and active. The ale-house stood near by, and it
+absorbed most of the spare time and scant earnings of the miners;
+but it is said that young Stephenson avoided the saloon, and was
+never known to leave his work for a drink of liquor. On off days he
+took his engine to pieces, examined its parts and the functions of
+each, and remedied small defects and devised improvements. Naturally
+clear-headed and ingenious, every circumstance tended to develop his
+executive powers. He soon was known in the Tyne valley as a good
+engine-doctor.
+
+An incident, when he was about twenty years of age, did much to
+shape his career. He heard that a neighboring mine had been flooded
+on account of the inability of the engine to pump fast enough. No
+engineer could make the engine efficient. One Sunday he went down
+and looked at it. After a thorough examination he said he could make
+it work in a week's time if he could have authority to make changes
+as he saw fit. Authority was given him. In four days the engine was
+repaired and set to work. In spite of jeers from old engine-men, who
+were jealous of a mere boy, the pump worked well and the mine was
+soon dry. George's reputation was made, and he soon received
+appointment as engineer at a large mine at Killingworth, an
+important place near by.
+
+Meanwhile Stephenson added exact instrumental drawing to his three
+R's. He found, as every artisan finds, that exact drawing is
+necessary not only to the study of existing mechanical devices, but
+particularly to the successful design of new parts. The successful
+inventor generally invents at his drawing-board.
+
+When twenty-one years of age Stephenson married Fanny Henderson, a
+respectable country girl living at Ballast Hill. He brought the
+bride home behind him on a pillion, a wedding journey of fifteen
+miles. Robert Stephenson, who became his father's partner, and one
+of the first of England's civil engineers, was born in 1803. In
+1812, when Stephenson was thirty-one years old, he was made
+engine-wright of a large colliery at Killingworth, at a salary of
+$500. The position was one of profit and fine opportunity. All the
+engines and machinery were in his hands, and all the repair-and
+construction-shops were available for such new designs as he saw fit
+to make. He at once set about making his first locomotive.
+
+Locomotives and railroads of certain sorts and fashions were already
+in existence, but they were rough and clumsy affairs.
+
+The rails were at first angle-irons, then flat bars of wrought iron,
+then cast-iron bars. In 1800 Benjamin Outram used stones for
+sleepers, and improved rails--hence "tramways." Over these tramways
+cars were drawn by horses, or by ropes from stationary engines.
+Murduck made a locomotive in 1784, and by 1812 several types of
+engines were used for hauling coal-cars. Stephenson saw one of
+Blenkinsop's engines. Gear-wheels connected the crank-shaft with the
+axles, and the driving-wheels were geared with the track, while of
+course, the coal-cars ran on different rails.
+
+This Blenkinsop's engine was a fearful machine. All the teeth
+rattled, and as there were no springs and the road was very uneven,
+the shocks were heavy and frequent, even though its speed was only
+four miles an hour.
+
+Stephenson's first engine, "My Lord," in honor of his patron, Lord
+Ravensworth, was finished in 1814. Some experiments on the friction
+of smooth wheels on iron rails led him to omit the teeth on the
+drivers, though everyone laughed at him, declaring that the engine
+would not run an "up grade," much less draw a load. His faith,
+however, resisted all arguments; it was based on experiments and
+careful calculations. Stephenson _knew_ that his engine would run up
+hill and draw a load, and it did so triumphantly.
+
+But the engine lacked steam. The boiler was small, and the fire was
+applied only on the exterior of the shell, and the draft was very
+poor, for the chimney was of necessity short. Only very low
+steam-pressure was possible, and little or no expansion was
+practicable. Consequently the exhaust was noisy and forcible.
+Stephenson turned it into the chimney and found that it increased
+the draft considerably; he at once thought that a steady jet of
+steam could be so directed as to make a strong draft even when the
+engine was not in motion. Thus the "blast" was invented, which about
+doubled the capacity of the machine.
+
+Stephenson's second locomotive, built in 1815, had no noisy gears,
+but instead, chain-belts to the driving-axles. It had, however, no
+springs, and the shocks were so great that only a low speed was
+possible. In 1816 he built locomotives with springs, some of which
+were in use for hauling coals for forty years.
+
+Meanwhile Robert was growing into a manly, useful lad. Knowing
+something of the value of education, both of the head and of the
+hand, his father determined that Robert should have the best of
+both. He was sent to Edinburgh for scientific culture, and when at
+home his father taught him drawing, mechanical processes, and the
+theory of machines as far as he was able--and his ability was
+considerable, for George Stephenson was more of a student than many
+whose early advantages were far better than his. The broad dual
+training given Robert appears to have been fully successful. Even
+before he became a man he was of great value to his father. Together
+they worked out plans for modifying and improving the locomotive and
+the road it was to run upon. He could soon draw and calculate better
+than his father, but he never excelled him in the solution of
+practical problems which depended upon a knowledge of materials and
+the simple laws of physics and mechanics.
+
+Thus far all railroads had been short, leading from mines to piers
+for shipping by water. The success of Stephenson's locomotive, the
+best working locomotive ever built at that time, led the
+proprietors of the Hetton Colliery, a few miles south of the Tyne
+valley, to propose a road, some eight miles long, over high hills
+and on steep grades. Stephenson planned and superintended the
+construction of the road as their engineer. There were several steep
+inclines where loaded cars going down drew empty cars up. There were
+two heavy stationary engines drawing cars by a rope, and five of
+Stephenson's locomotives for the easy grades. Each locomotive drew
+seventeen wagons, weighing about sixty-four tons, at the rate of
+four miles per hour. This was the best done as yet, and was
+considered a great success. It thoroughly established the reputation
+of George Stephenson as an engineer. This road was opened in 1822.
+
+Before the Hetton Railway was opened Stephenson was busy on a larger
+work. Parliament had given a franchise for a railway in Durham
+County, some twenty miles long, through Darlington to Stockton. The
+function of the road was to carry coal to a shipping pier, and it
+was not at all settled that horses would not be used to draw the
+cars. While not much was known about railways, and very little about
+locomotives, there was a growing conviction that there was great
+economy in the use of tramways and the steam-engine, and the
+prospect brightened for building the road.
+
+The charming biographer, Smiles, tells how George Stephenson called
+on Mr. Edward Pease, the president of the proposed railway, and
+offered his services in building and equipping the road. Mr. Pease
+was at once pleased with the man. "There was," said he later, "such
+an honest, sensible look about him, and he seemed so modest and
+unpretending. He spoke in the strong Northumbrian dialect, and
+described himself as 'only the engine-wright at Killingworth.'"
+
+Stephenson urged at once that the road be built for locomotives. Mr.
+Pease had never seen a locomotive at work, and had taken it for
+granted that horses would be used; but he went up to Killingworth
+and rode on the "Blucher" with Stephenson, while it hauled a train
+of loaded cars. Seeing was believing, and Mr. Pease was in favor of
+both Stephenson and his locomotive.
+
+So Stephenson was made chief engineer. He and his son Robert
+surveyed the line, changed the location, avoiding certain territory
+where people were hostile to a road of any sort, and built new and
+improved locomotives for the line. What we now call good tools were
+not to be had, and skilled workmen were not easy to find, but
+Stephenson made a great advance in the quality of the workmanship.
+
+The amended Act of Parliament gave the Stockton and Darlington line
+the right to carry passengers in cars drawn by locomotives. This was
+the first instance of such a grant. Stephenson met Mr. Pease in
+1821; the road was opened to the public in 1825. People came in
+crowds to see the locomotives and to ride on the _first public
+railway_. There had been bitter opposition to the road and a vast
+amount of incredulity as to the ability of the locomotives to do
+practical work.
+
+Imagine the excitement of the first ride. The train consisted of 6
+cars loaded with coal and other freight; then a short passenger
+coach filled with directors and friends; then 21 open cars or
+wagons fitted for excursionists; lastly came 6 more cars loaded with
+coal--making 38 cars in all!
+
+Mr. Stephenson was proud to be on the locomotive and to run it
+himself. It seemed to spectators incredible that the locomotive
+could start such a load, but it did start it, and it drew it 8-3/4
+miles in 65 minutes, the speed at times reaching 12 miles per hour!
+More cars were added at Darlington, and then the train drew on to
+Stockton, all cars being crowded with passengers.
+
+The success was complete, and all doubts seemed to vanish. From that
+day the traffic over the road continued without interruption. To the
+surprise of all, the passenger business became a very important
+item, and better cars were quickly in demand.
+
+The road is in use to-day, and I had the pleasure last year of
+riding over a part of it. Of course it now looks in all respects
+like a modern English road, but I was deeply moved by the thought
+that it was there that George Stephenson built his first public
+railway and achieved his first public triumph.
+
+Stephenson was not unmindful of the importance of that step. He
+said, on that occasion, to some young men, "Now, lads, I will tell
+you that I think you will live to see the day (though I may not live
+so long), when railways will come to supersede almost all other
+methods of conveyance--when mail coaches will go by railway. The
+time is coming when it will be cheaper for a working-man to ride
+than to go on foot." He lived to see all that himself, and far more.
+
+It is difficult for us to appreciate the popular surprise and
+delight at that first railway excursion. We are so accustomed to
+splendid engines, luxurious cars, and high speed, that we think
+nothing of them; but when all were new--when coaches and carts on
+highways were the sole reliance for passengers and freight--it was
+astonishing indeed to see a "travelling engine," in charge of two
+men, draw a train of forty cars and six hundred people!
+
+Many men would have been satisfied with the result, but Stephenson
+was not. He said there was no limit to the speed but the strength of
+the machinery and the supply of steam. He saw there was no limit to
+the load but the strength and weight of the locomotive, and no limit
+to the weight but the strength of the rails and the character of the
+road-bed; thus he early saw how progress was to be made.
+
+But Stephenson's greatest triumph was yet to come. The Darlington
+road was chiefly for coals, between small towns in a rough northern
+county. The vast majority of English people heard nothing, and knew
+nothing about it. Consequently when it was proposed to connect the
+great commercial city of Liverpool with the great manufacturing city
+of Manchester, forty miles away, by a railway, it was taken for
+granted that the cars were to be drawn by horses. Nevertheless a
+tram-road was opposed, first, by the Duke of Bridgewater, who had a
+canal between the two cities; and, secondly, by those who owned the
+coaches and the inns. Though proposed in 1821, the opposition was so
+great that it was laid over for several years. In 1824 a committee
+of interested parties went to Darlington and Killingworth to see
+Stephenson's road and locomotives. The Darlington line was not yet
+in operation, but the old locomotives were at work at Killingworth.
+The committee decided that they must have a double track for cars,
+whatever might be the motive power.
+
+Accordingly Stephenson was invited to make surveys and estimates, as
+he was said to be a man of great energy and the only man in England
+with the necessary experience.
+
+The surveys were made in 1825 with the greatest difficulty, on
+account of the opposition of landowners. The surveyors were ordered
+off the grounds, threatened with arrest and violence. Stephenson
+testified before a Parliamentary Committee that the duke's manager
+threatened to have him thrown into the mill-pond if he trespassed.
+Stephenson kept on as good terms as he could with the hostiles, and
+surveyed their grounds by stealth.
+
+The chief points of difficulty were a tunnel at Liverpool, and a
+vast and treacherous morass known as "Chat Moss."
+
+Early in 1825, before the Darlington road was opened, Parliament was
+considering the railway bill and Stephenson was called before the
+committee as a most important witness. All the opposition was out in
+force and every means was used to ridicule the undertaking and
+defeat the bill.
+
+The spectacle presented by plain, blunt, unlettered George
+Stephenson before the lawyers and members of the House of Commons
+was strange and interesting, and no wonder it has become historical.
+
+In the cross-examination, every effort was made to confuse and
+discredit the witness, but he bore himself remarkably well. He had
+built or superintended half a dozen short railways, and had
+constructed sixteen locomotives, and he could speak on the details
+of his plans with certainty and confidence. Two things embarrassed
+him; the consciousness of awkwardness of manner and speech among men
+some of whom were inclined to sneer at his northern dialect and lack
+of polish; secondly, the necessity of restraining himself in stating
+what his locomotives could do. He fully believed they could draw
+long trains at the speed of twenty miles, but he was told by the
+friends of the bill that if he made that claim before the committee,
+he would be called a madman, and the bill would be killed;
+accordingly he promised to hold himself down to ten miles per hour.
+
+The evidence brought in against the bill was remarkable, and to-day
+it sounds strange enough. It was urged that the rails would bend
+under the locomotive at high speed; that the engine would run off
+the track on curves; that if the engine got round the curves the
+cars would go off; that the driving-wheels would "spin," if they
+went fast, without drawing the train; that the noise and sight of
+the train would frighten horses and cattle; that hens would not lay
+and cows would cease to give milk along by the road; that the smoke
+would poison the air and blast the fields and parks; that the coach
+lines would be ruined, horses would no longer be of value, and
+coach-makers, harness-makers, inn-keepers and others along the great
+roads would have nothing to do, etc., etc. In the face of ignorance,
+ridicule, contempt, and self-interest, Stephenson firmly maintained
+the safety of a good road, the stability of his engines and cars,
+the harmlessness of smoke and noise, and the facility with which
+animals became indifferent to trains. He said that at Killingworth
+cattle would not stop feeding as the trains went by. As to the
+effect of speed, he boldly asserted that at twelve miles per hour
+the load on a rail would be no more than at six, and in support of
+his position he appealed to skaters who go swiftly over thin ice. As
+to the "spinning" of the wheels, he was positive that no such thing
+ever had happened or could happen. The enemies of the bill caught at
+his suggestion of twelve miles per hour, and so pressed and led him
+on that he declared his honest conviction that his trains could run
+on such a road as he could make twelve miles per hour. This rashness
+alarmed his friends, and they tried in vain to smooth it over by
+declaring such speed to be purely "hypothetical."
+
+In spite of all that could be said in its favor, in spite of the
+pressing need of better transportation for coal, cotton,
+merchandise, and passengers, the bill failed. Such was the
+blindness, and ignorance, and prejudice of the House of Commons!
+Think of calling George Stephenson "an ignoramus, a fool, a maniac,"
+in Parliament, yet such was done.
+
+The friends of the bill were not discouraged; they determined to
+apply again the next year; but poor Stephenson was discredited, Mr.
+George Rennie, the great bridge engineer, was employed to make a new
+survey, and Mr. Stephenson was not called before the committee.
+Meanwhile, the Darlington line was opened, and reports of its
+success had reached London. It seemed to be admitted that the _road_
+was a good thing, but there was great scepticism in regard to the
+locomotive. However, the bill passed in the spring of 1826, and the
+directors were not long in deciding that the only competent man to
+build the road was George Stephenson, and he was elected principal
+engineer at a salary of $5,000.
+
+The building of the road seemed to be, and was at the time, a
+tremendous undertaking. Bridges, viaducts, tunnels, and above all,
+Chat Moss, a yielding bog four miles across and of unknown depth,
+all taxed the engineer and the company to the utmost. The road was
+finished in 1830. With the exception of bridges and rails it was
+very much as it exists to-day.
+
+For a long time the directors were undecided as to the method of
+propelling the cars. Nearly every engineer except Stephenson was
+opposed to the locomotive, or travelling engine.
+
+It seems incredible that Telford and the two Rennies, road-makers
+and bridge-builders, lacked faith in the locomotive, and preferred
+stationary engines and long cables. Their main objection to the
+locomotive appears to have been based on the fact that the steam
+capacity was small, and that it was impracticable to build a
+locomotive large enough to furnish all the steam that was needed.
+Stephenson insisted that already his locomotives were better than
+stationary engines, and yet they could be greatly improved. He said,
+"Offer a generous prize for the best locomotive, and inventors and
+builders will greatly improve their machines, and we will have a far
+better locomotive than now." He said he felt sure he could make a
+much better one himself. By that time Stephenson was part owner in
+new locomotive works at Newcastle, and Robert was in general charge
+there.
+
+The puzzled directors decided to adopt Stephenson's suggestion, and
+offered $2,500 as a prize for the best locomotive. The specifications
+required:
+
+1. The engine (without tender) must not weigh more than six tons.
+
+2. The ordinary steam pressure must not exceed 50 pounds above that
+of the atmosphere.
+
+3. It must be well supplied with safety-valves and pressure-gauges.
+
+4. It must not exceed fifteen feet in height.
+
+5. It must rest on springs.
+
+6. It must be able (if weighing six tons) to draw twenty tons
+continuously ten miles per hour.
+
+7. It must not cost more than $2,750.
+
+8. The boiler must stand a pressure, when tested, of 150 pounds per
+square inch.
+
+9. It must be ready for trial October 1, 1829.
+
+The publication of these conditions and the offer of the prize
+excited great interest, and caused no small amount of comment.[11]
+The Stephensons at once began the construction of "The Rocket,"
+without doubt the most famous locomotive ever built. The improved
+feature it was to have was increased heating surface, so that
+without increased weight it could generate more steam. This was
+effected by putting fire-tubes through the water in the boiler.
+Boiler-tubes had already been used by different people, and some of
+Stephenson's locomotives which he had sent to France had been fitted
+with tubes. At the suggestion of Mr. James Booth, Stephenson decided
+to use a large number of tubes. Modern boilers have smaller tubes
+and more of them, but "The Rocket" was the first to typify the
+modern multitubular boiler. In other respects "The Rocket" was like
+Stephenson's other locomotives built ten or twelve years earlier.
+
+         [Footnote 11: It is said that a prominent man of Liverpool
+         declared that "only a parcel of charlatans would ever have
+         issued such a set of conditions; that it had been _proved_ to
+         be impossible to make a locomotive go ten miles per hour." He
+         added that, "if it ever was done, he would eat a stewed
+         engine-wheel for breakfast."]
+
+A brief description of "The Rocket" will not be out of place: The
+boiler was 6 feet long, 3 feet 4 inches in diameter, and was
+furnished with 25 copper tubes 3 inches in diameter. The fire-box
+was at the rear end of the boiler, 2 feet wide and 3 feet high,
+surrounded by water. The cylinders were high on the sides, pointing
+down to the forward wheels, which were the only drivers. Stephenson
+had used coupling rods between two sets of "drivers," but "The
+Rocket" was made for speed chiefly. Its weight when furnished with
+water was only _four and a half tons_! On trial at Killingworth "The
+Rocket" worked finely and its capacity for steam was marvellous. It
+was sent by wagon to Carlisle and by boat to Liverpool.
+
+On the day set for the trial there were four engines on hand: 1. The
+"Novelty," built by young Ericsson, who afterward in New York built
+the famous "Monitor." 2. The "Sanspareil," by Timothy Hackworth. 3.
+The "Perseverance," by a Mr. Burstall. 4. "The Rocket," by
+Stephenson and Booth.
+
+The programme of test fixed by the judges was to run over a level
+piece of the road at Rainhill, two miles long, forty times during a
+day, at a rate not less than ten miles per hour. The train was to
+weigh three and one-third times as much as the locomotive. Each
+engine was to have a day for trial.
+
+The "Perseverance" proved slow; its best speed was not more than six
+miles per hour; so it was quickly withdrawn.
+
+The "Sanspareil" was made by one of Stephenson's own foremen, and
+differed little from the Killingworth style of locomotive. It was
+rather over weight, but it ran at times as fast as fourteen miles
+per hour. Its machinery was defective, however, and it was ruled out
+by the judges.
+
+The "Novelty" ran at times in good style, but its bellows, for
+making a fire-blast, were defective and repeatedly gave out, causing
+delay. It failed to make the required speed with a full load; by
+itself it is said to have run at the rate of twenty-eight miles per
+hour. Ericsson claimed that he had not had time to properly
+construct his locomotive, and the claim was probably just. As it
+was, the time was extended six days.
+
+The day assigned for "The Rocket" was the third day, but when on the
+second day all other engines failed, it was brought out to entertain
+the spectators. Attaching it to a coach full of passengers,
+Stephenson ran over the line at a rate reaching _thirty miles per
+hour_, to the amazement of all.
+
+The next morning "The Rocket" was subjected to the regular test. Its
+assigned load was thirteen and a half tons which it drew back and
+forth over the two-mile track the full stent of forty times, making
+a spurt at times as high as twenty-nine miles, about three times
+what had been declared possible by the judges! Finally, to show how
+fast the engine could go and still keep the track, Mr. Stephenson
+ran it alone at the astonishing rate of thirty-five miles per hour.
+
+Thus did "The Rocket" surpass all records and all expectations. The
+enthusiasm of every one was unbounded. All doubts were removed and
+Stephenson's opponents in the company became his ardent friends. His
+judgment seemed infallible, and his word was law.
+
+This victory at Rainhill completed the triumph of the Liverpool and
+Manchester Railway. The road was opened the following year, 1830,
+with most imposing ceremonies. Members of Parliament, lords and
+ladies, and even the great Duke of Wellington, honored the occasion
+by their presence, and rode on the excursion trains.
+
+The story of George Stephenson's great work is told. His railroad
+and his locomotive had come together, and to stay. All opposition
+was crushed, and no sooner was one road in successful operation than
+another, sometimes several, were on foot. George and Robert
+Stephenson were in demand everywhere and their locomotive works were
+full of orders. In twenty years England had nearly ten thousand
+miles of railways.
+
+The spectacle of these two men, father and son, working together as
+equals was one often admired. Both became wealthy and full of
+honor. Titled men were proud to pay their respects to George
+Stephenson, and when he died, in 1848, at the age of sixty-seven,
+the whole nation rose up to do him honor.
+
+Though probably Stephenson had never heard of Emerson, Emerson had
+heard of Stephenson, and he called upon him on his visit to England.
+Afterward Emerson said that "it was worth crossing the Atlantic to
+have seen Stephenson alone; he had such native force of character
+and vigor of intellect."
+
+What a contrast that meeting offers! There face to face stood two
+men, two great philosophers, both of whom have broadly and deeply
+influenced mankind--one by deeds, the other by words. One wielded
+the pen, giving us noble, beautiful and inspiring thoughts,
+profoundly analyzing life and character; the other wielded those
+cunning tools with which man subdues nature and harnesses its forces
+to do his will. He wrote not for the pages of a book, but on lines
+of steel with a stylus that conquered time and space, bringing
+distant cities into companionship. I look up to each with an equal
+reverence. Each achieved the conquest of mind over matter, and each
+exhibited the exceeding manliness of a noble life and character.
+
+There is no space with which to speak of Stephenson's safety-lamp,
+nor of the influence his life and character have had on the brain
+and brawn of working England. If my reader is interested to know him
+more and better, let him consult the nearest library.
+
+One word about "The Rocket" and this brief sketch is done. For some
+years "The Rocket" did service on the Liverpool and Manchester road,
+but it soon proved too light for the heavy traffic, and was sold to
+a coal company in the North, where for years it faithfully hauled
+coal-cars from the mines. But even there it was superseded, and in
+contempt consigned to the back-yard. It was still fleet, but not
+strong. In that dreary back-yard among useless lumber, the once
+peerless "Rocket" spent a season or two in rain and snow and sunny
+weather, when George Stephenson bought it back and put it in his
+cabinet at the Newcastle works. After Stephenson's death the
+precious relic was placed in the British Museum in London.
+
+"The Rocket" itself was exhibited a few years ago at the Railway
+Exposition in Chicago, and an exact copy of it was shown at the
+recent World's Fair.
+
+[Signature: C. M. Woodward.]
+
+
+
+
+SAMUEL F. B. MORSE
+
+(1791-1872)
+
+[Illustration: Samuel F. B. Morse.]
+
+
+Samuel Finley Breese Morse, artist and inventor, was born at the
+foot of Breed's Hill, Charlestown, Mass., on April 27, 1791. His
+father was the Rev. Jedediah Morse, D.D., the author of Morse's
+"Geography." At the age of fourteen Samuel Morse entered Yale
+College; under the instruction of Professors Day and Silliman he
+received the first impulse toward those electrical studies with
+which his name is mainly identified.
+
+In 1811 Morse, whose tastes during his early years led him more
+strongly toward art than toward science, became the pupil of
+Washington Allston, then the greatest of American artists, and
+accompanied his master to England, where he remained four years. His
+success at this period was considerable; but on his return to
+America, in 1815, he failed to obtain commissions for historical
+paintings, and after working on portraits for two years at
+Charleston, S.C., he removed first to Washington and afterward to
+Albany, finally settling in New York. In 1825 he laid the
+foundations of the National Academy of Design, and was elected its
+first president, an office which he filled until 1845. The year 1827
+marks the revival of Morse's interest in electricity. It was at this
+time that he learned from Professor J. F. Dana, of Columbia College,
+the elementary facts of electro-magnetism. As yet, however, he was
+devoted to his art, and in 1829 he again went to Europe to study the
+old masters.
+
+The year of his return, 1832, may be said to close the period of his
+artistic, and to open that of his scientific, life. On board the
+packet-ship Sully, which sailed from Havre, October 1, 1832, while
+discussing one day with his fellow-passengers the properties of the
+electro-magnet, he was led to remark: "If the presence of
+electricity can be made visible in any part of the circuit, I see no
+reason why intelligence may not be transmitted by electricity."
+
+It was not a novel proposition, but the process of formulating it
+started in his mind a train of new and momentous ideas. The current
+of electricity, he knew, would pass instantaneously any distance
+along a wire; and if it were interrupted a spark would appear. It
+now occurred to him that the spark might represent a part of speech,
+either a letter or a number; the absence of the spark, another part;
+and the duration of its absence, or of the spark itself, a third; so
+that an alphabet might be easily formed, and words indicated. In a
+few days he had completed rough drafts of the necessary apparatus,
+which he displayed to his fellow-passengers. Five years later, the
+captain of the ship identified under oath Morse's completed
+instrument with that which Morse had explained on board the Sully,
+in 1832.
+
+During the twelve years that followed Morse was engaged in a painful
+struggle to perfect his invention and secure for it a proper
+presentation to the public. The refusal of the Government to
+commission him to paint one of the great historical pictures in the
+rotunda of the Capitol, seemed to destroy all his old artistic
+ambition. In poverty he pursued his new enterprise, making his own
+models, moulds, and castings, denying himself the common necessaries
+of life, and encountering embarrassments and delays of the most
+disheartening kind. It was not until 1836 that he completed any
+apparatus that would work, his original idea having been
+supplemented by his discovery, in 1835, of the "relay," by means of
+which the electric current might be reinforced or renewed where it
+became weak through distance from its source. Finally, on September
+2, 1837, the instrument was exhibited to a few friends at his room
+in the University building, New York, where a circuit of 1,700 feet
+of copper wire had been set up, with such satisfactory results as to
+awaken the practical interest of the Messrs. Vail, iron and brass
+workers in New Jersey, who thenceforth became associated with Morse
+in his undertaking.
+
+Morse's petition for a patent was dated September 28, 1837, and was
+soon followed by a petition to Congress for an appropriation to
+defray the expense of subjecting the telegraph to actual experiment
+over a length sufficient to establish its feasibility and
+demonstrate its value. The Committee on Commerce, to whom the
+petition was referred, reported favorably. Congress, however,
+adjourned without making the appropriation, and meanwhile Morse
+sailed for Europe to take out patents there. The trip was not a
+success. In England his application was refused, on the alleged
+ground that his invention had been already published; and while he
+obtained a patent in France, it was subsequently appropriated by the
+French Government without compensation to himself. His negotiations
+also with Russia proved futile, and after a year's absence he
+returned to New York.
+
+On February 23, 1843, Congress passed the long-delayed appropriation
+of $30,000; and steps were at once taken to construct a telegraph
+from Baltimore to Washington. On May 24, 1844, it was used for the
+first time, Mr. Morse himself sending over the wires the first and
+ever-to-be-remembered message, "What hath God wrought."
+
+[Illustration: Samuel F. B. Morse, Inventor of the Telegraph.]
+
+Morse's parents were already secured to him and his associates, and
+companies were soon formed for the erection of telegraph lines all
+over the United States. In the year 1847 he was compelled to defend
+his invention in the courts, and successfully vindicated his claims
+to be called the original inventor of the electro-magnetic recording
+telegraph. Thenceforward Morse's life was spent in witnessing the
+growth of his enterprise, and in gathering the honors which an
+appreciative public bestowed upon him. As years went by he received
+from the various foreign governments their highest distinctions,
+while in 1858 the representatives of Austria, Belgium, France, the
+Netherlands, Piedmont, Russia, the Holy See, Sweden, Tuscany, and
+Turkey appropriated the sum of 400,000 francs in recognition of the
+use of his instruments in those countries.
+
+The telegraph is not the only great success with which the name of
+Samuel Morse is honorably connected. Having made the acquaintance of
+Daguerre in Paris, he studied with him the infancy of photography,
+and was the first to take sun pictures, or daguerreotypes, in
+America. Also it was he who made the first submarine electric cable.
+This was laid in New York Harbor; and from it he was the first to
+conceive that stupendous idea of the transoceanic telegraph. In the
+preparations for laying the first Atlantic cable he took an active
+part, though the attempt of 1857, in which he personally engaged,
+was not successful. He died April 2, 1872, at New York, where his
+statue in bronze now stands in the Central Park.
+
+
+
+
+PETER COOPER[12]
+
+         [Footnote 12: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By CLARENCE COOK
+
+(1791-1883)
+
+[Illustration: Peter Cooper.]
+
+
+It may be said, without exaggeration, that few men in our time and
+country, not occupying official position, have been so widely and
+sincerely mourned as the late Peter Cooper. Other men have been as
+genuinely good as he, and have founded charitable institutions as
+worthy and as useful, in their way, as the one which is to be the
+lasting monument to his memory. But Peter Cooper held a place in the
+hearts of his fellow-citizens which belonged to him alone. A man, to
+outward seeming, in manners and conversation as plain and homespun
+as his name, he held unshaken from youth to old age--and to few men
+is it allotted to live in uninterrupted health and action to the age
+of ninety-two--the confidence, the respect and the affection of all
+sorts of people: the rich and the poor, the high and the low, the
+learned and the unlearned, people of all parties and of all
+religions. Character is the accumulation of little actions, and
+makes its deepest impression, of course, when these actions have
+been observed by great numbers of people during a long period of
+time. The whole of his ninety-two years, with the exception of a
+short time passed in his youth in its vicinity, were spent by Mr.
+Cooper in the city of New York. It was little more than a country
+town when he was born; it was already one of the great cities of the
+world when he died; and in all that time he had been associated with
+the business enterprises that had helped its growth, as one of the
+chief actors.
+
+The fortune that he built up was both earned and expended here; the
+manner of its earning was known of all men, but the way in which it
+was expended was rather felt than known, for, like all great and
+generous benefactors, Mr. Cooper was without ostentation; but as he
+gave while he was alive and all the time that he was alive; and as
+he gave to the people among whom he lived, and not to outsiders, it
+naturally followed that his name, his person, his traits of
+character, became, as it were, a common possession to the people of
+New York; but few men upon whom such a glare of publicity had fallen
+for so many years would have been able to bear the scrutiny so well
+as Peter Cooper.
+
+He was born on February 12, 1791, presumably in Little Dock Street,
+now Water Street, Coenties Slip, where his father, John Cooper,
+carried on the trade of a hatter. His shop was near the store of
+John Jacob Astor, from whom he bought the beaver-skins which he made
+up into hats. John Cooper had served in the war of the Revolution,
+and when it ended, he retired with the rank of lieutenant. He
+married Margaret, the daughter of John Campbell, who also had served
+in the Continental army, as quartermaster, and who now carried on
+the trade of potter and tile-maker on the spot where St. Paul's
+Chapel now stands.
+
+To John and Margaret Cooper nine children were born, two daughters
+and seven sons, of whom Peter was the fifth, and was named after the
+apostle in the belief, as his father expressed it, that he would
+come to something. Following the fashion of the time, he was set to
+work at his father's trade as soon as he was old enough to work, as
+all his brothers had been before him: and in later years he
+described himself as a little boy, with his head just reaching the
+top of the table where he was set to pulling out the hairs from
+rabbit skins to use in making fur hats; and he was kept at the
+business until he was fifteen, when, as he used to tell, he had
+learned to make every part of a hat. So independent is business
+success of what is commonly called education, that it may be of
+interest to record that Peter Cooper never went to school for more
+than one year, and only in the half of each day of school: his
+parents were poor, and could not spare what his labor earned, and
+besides his health was delicate, and the confinement of school was
+thought more injurious to him than the work in the shop. In
+consequence of this restriction Peter Cooper grew to manhood with
+very little learning beyond reading, writing, and the rudiments of
+arithmetic, and while this was a source of regret to him all his
+life, it was in reality the spur that drove him to found an
+institution that should take away all excuses for ignorance from the
+coming generations of poor boys in his native city.
+
+The elder Cooper would seem to have been a man of small practical
+capacity or staying power, for he moved about from place to place,
+changing his business in the hope of bettering his condition; now
+going to Peekskill to set up a brewery; thence to Catskill, where
+he added brick-making to making beer; then to Brooklyn to try
+hatting again; and finally to Newburgh, where he returned to
+brewing. In all these shiftings of home and business Peter remained
+with his father and gave him what help he could; he used in later
+life to recall his carrying about the beer-kegs to his father's
+customers; but at the age of seventeen, with his parents' consent,
+he came back to New York, and looked about for work on his own
+account. He had saved up from his small earnings, while with his
+father, the sum of ten dollars, and with this, he tells us, he
+bought a lottery ticket, which drew a blank. This seeming misfortune
+he turned to good account, for he then determined never to trust to
+luck again, but to be content to earn his bread in the appointed
+way: it was his first and last speculation. On reaching New York he
+had the usual difficulty in finding employment, but at length was
+accepted as an apprentice by a firm of carriage-makers, to whom,
+with his father's consent, he bound himself until he should come of
+age; his masters agreeing to pay him $25 a year and his board. His
+grandmother had a house on Broadway, in which she gave him the use
+of an upper room, and here in his spare hours he employed himself in
+wood-carving, in which he acquired some proficiency. In his business
+he worked so industriously, and made himself so valuable to his
+employers, that when his time expired they offered to lend him the
+money to go into business for himself; but he did not accept this
+generous offer, as he was determined never to be in debt. While with
+Messrs. Burtis and Woodward he had invented a machine for mortising
+wheel-hubs, thus giving the first evidence of an inventive faculty
+which, though never accomplishing great things, was often of
+considerable service both to himself and the community. On leaving
+the business of carriage-making Peter Cooper went to Hempstead, L.
+I., where he found work in a woollen factory. Here he invented and
+patented an improvement on the machine in use for shearing the nap
+of cloth; and as during the war of 1812 all commerce with England
+ceased, cloth-making in America flourished, and from the sale of his
+machines, which he could hardly make fast enough to supply the
+demand, young Cooper reaped a considerable profit. One of his first
+customers was the late Matthew Vassar, of Poughkeepsie, to whom he
+not only sold some of his machines, but also the right to dispose of
+them in Dutchess County. When he found that his earnings had enabled
+him to lay by the sum of $500, he thought himself justified in
+asking a young woman, Miss Sarah Bedel, whom he had met when in
+Hempstead, to become his wife; but before doing so, he determined to
+visit his parents in Newburgh, and inform them of his intention. He
+found them in great trouble, his father in debt and needing help;
+and without hesitation he placed his small savings at his disposal,
+paid the most pressing of the debts, and made arrangements for
+paying off the rest. His father was thus saved from bankruptcy by
+his son's devotion; but the action was characteristic of Peter
+Cooper, both in its unselfishness, and as indicative of his business
+integrity. He would never be in debt himself, and he was equally
+resolved to keep those belonging to him as free as himself. He took
+pride in the fact that neither he nor his father had ever failed in
+business; and this is the more remarkable, since in the course of
+his business life the country passed through no less than ten
+serious commercial panics.
+
+Peter Cooper and Miss Bedel were married on December 22, 1813, when
+he was twenty-two and the lady twenty-one. Their married life, as it
+was exceptionally long, so it was exceptionally happy. It lasted
+fifty-six years; Mrs. Cooper died in 1869, and Mr. Cooper survived
+her fourteen years, dying in 1883. Their golden wedding was
+celebrated in 1863. They had six children, but only two lived to
+grow up; the Hon. Edward Cooper, once mayor of the city, and Sarah
+Amelia Cooper, the wife of the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt. Mr. James
+Parton says: "There never was a happier marriage than this. To old
+age Mr. Cooper never sat near his wife without holding her hand in
+his. He never spoke to her, nor of her, without some tender epithet.
+He attributed the great happiness of his life and most of his
+success to her admirable qualities. She seconded every good impulse
+of his benevolence, and made the fulfilment of his great scheme
+possible by her wise and resolute economy."
+
+Mr. Cooper seems to have inherited something of his father's
+business restlessness, for in addition to the many pursuits in which
+we have seen him engage, he now bought a grocery stand, and in about
+a year gave that up and purchased a glue factory, selling his
+grocery business and buying a lease of the glue factory for
+twenty-one years, for $2,000, his whole savings. He differed from
+his father in this, that everything prospered with which he had to
+do. The grocery had done well, but the glue factory did better. "At
+that time nearly all the glue used in this country was imported from
+Ireland, and sold at a high price. Mr. Cooper studied the subject
+and experimented, until he was able to make better glue than the
+Irish and sell it at a lower price, and he soon had nearly the
+entire glue business of the country in his hands." But chance had
+nothing to do with Mr. Cooper's success: the secret of that success
+was unremitting industry and generous economy. He worked that he
+might earn, and he saved that he might use and give. For twenty
+years while he held the glue factory, he was his own bookkeeper,
+clerk, and salesman; going to the factory at daybreak to light the
+fires, and spending the evenings at home, posting his books,
+writing, and reading to his family.
+
+In 1828, moved by the interest in business circles in the completion
+of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Mr. Cooper, with two partners,
+bought a tract of three thousand acres within the city limits of
+Baltimore. By the failure of his associates to meet the payment of
+their shares, Mr. Cooper was obliged to shoulder the whole cost,
+amounting to $105,000. The road, too, owing to unexpected
+difficulties in construction, was dreading bankruptcy, from which it
+was saved by Mr. Cooper's ingenuity in devising a locomotive that
+enabled the company to overcome certain difficulties that had been
+thought insurmountable. Failing in the end to sell his land as he
+had hoped, Mr. Cooper decided to utilize the timber growing on it in
+the manufacture of charcoal iron. When he had, after many
+difficulties, established his works, he sold out to some Boston
+capitalists, who formed the Canton Iron Company. Mr. Cooper took a
+large part of the purchase in stock at $45 a share, which he finally
+sold out at $230 a share.
+
+This was the beginning of his interest in the iron business, where
+the greater part of his fortune was made. The remainder came from
+his glue works and the industries connected with them. In 1873, the
+year of the great panic, in a letter to President Grant suggesting
+remedial legislation, Mr. Cooper said that not less than a thousand
+persons depended for their bread on the business carried on in the
+circle of his family. He had at that time two rolling-mills running,
+and two mills for the manufacture of wire and springs; and his glue,
+oil, and isinglass works gave employment to two hundred persons.
+
+The story of Mr. Cooper's connection with the laying of the Atlantic
+cable has been so often told, that we do not repeat it here. It adds
+further testimony to his indomitable energy, his largeness of view,
+his financial ability, and the confidence that was felt in him by
+his fellow-men. The story of the difficulties, failures and final
+success of this grandest achievement of modern science and
+enterprise, is as romantic as any episode in social history.
+
+But, in Peter Cooper's view, the most important event in his
+life--the one to which all his energies, his thoughts, his economics
+had been steadily directed since his youth--was the founding of the
+institution that bears his name, and that has made him a powerful
+factor in the development of New York. It was the outcome, in the
+first place, of its founder's regret for the deficiencies of his own
+early training, which were owing partly to his parents' poverty and
+partly to the lack of public or free schools in his native city when
+he was a boy. But this regret, which could only have been felt by a
+man of superior intelligence, was made to flower in this great
+result by Mr. Cooper's genuine, deep, and unfailing love for his
+fellow-men, and his belief in the duty of every man to help the race
+forward in its progress to a better social condition. He has himself
+stated the principles on which his life was founded. His aim was "to
+render some equivalent to society, in some useful form of labor, for
+each day of his existence;" and "while he had always recognized that
+the object of business is to make money in an honorable manner, he
+had endeavored to remember that the object of life is to do good."
+
+In 1876 Mr. Cooper was nominated for the presidency by the National
+Independent or "Greenback" party. It was with no selfish ambition
+that he allowed his name to go before the voters of the country, and
+his only regret at the result was that a policy was defeated which
+he believed to be for the public good.
+
+Mr. Cooper died April 4, 1883, at the age of ninety-two, after a
+short illness, the result of a cold. At his funeral, the late Dr.
+Crosby said: "What an example has been set by this life to our young
+men! How it shows them what the true aim of life should be! What an
+example to our wealthy men to show that money obtained by honest
+industry, and spent in benefiting mankind, will never produce war
+between labor and capital, but will assuage all angry elements, and
+give universal peace! Oh! if all our wealthy men were like Peter
+Cooper, all classes would be satisfied, all commotions cease, and
+the community would be as near perfection--as near perfection in the
+pecuniary view--as it possibly could be on earth."
+
+[Signature: Clarence Cook.]
+
+
+
+
+LOUIS KOSSUTH
+
+(1802-1894)
+
+[Illustration: Louis Kossuth.]
+
+
+Louis Kossuth was born at Monok, in Zemplin, one of the northern
+counties of Hungary, April 21, 1802. His family was ancient, but
+impoverished; his father served in the Austrian army during the wars
+against Napoleon; his mother is represented to have been a woman of
+extraordinary force of mind and character. Kossuth thus adds another
+to the long list of great men who seem to have inherited their
+genius from their mothers. As a boy he was remarkable for the
+winning gentleness of his disposition, and for an earnest
+enthusiasm, which gave promise of future eminence, could he but
+break the bonds imposed by low birth and iron fortune. A young
+clergyman was attracted by the character of the boy, and voluntarily
+took upon himself the office of his tutor, and thus first opened
+before his mind visions of a broader world than that of the
+miserable village of his residence. But these serene days of power
+expanding under genial guidance soon passed away. His father died,
+his tutor was translated to another post, and the walls of his
+prison-house seemed again to close upon the boy. But by the aid of
+members of his family, themselves in humble circumstances, he was
+enabled to attend such schools as the district furnished. Little
+worth knowing was taught there; but among that little was the Latin
+language; and through that door the young dreamer was introduced
+into the broad domains of history, where, abandoning the mean
+present, he could range at will through the immortal past.
+
+In times of peace the law offers to an aspiring youth the readiest
+means of ascent from a low degree to lofty stations. Kossuth,
+therefore, when just entering upon manhood, made his way to Pesth,
+the capital, to study the legal profession. Here he entered the
+office of a notary, and began gradually to make himself known by his
+liberal opinions and the fervid eloquence with which he set forth
+and maintained them; and men began to see in him the promise of a
+powerful public writer, orator, and debater.
+
+The man and the hour were alike preparing. In 1825, the year before
+Kossuth arrived at Pesth, the critical state of her Italian
+possessions compelled Austria to provide extraordinary revenues. The
+Hungarian Diet was then assembled, after an interval of thirteen
+years. This Diet at once demanded certain measures of reform before
+they would make the desired pecuniary grants. The court was obliged
+to concede these demands. Kossuth, having completed his legal
+studies, and finding no favorable opening in the capital, returned,
+in 1830, to his native district, and commenced the practice of the
+law, with marked success. He also began to make his way toward
+public life by his assiduous attendance and intelligent action in
+the local assemblies. A new Diet was assembled in 1832, and he
+received a commission as the representative in the Diet of a magnate
+who was absent. As proxy for an absentee he was only charged, by the
+Hungarian Constitution, with a very subordinate part, his functions
+being more those of a counsel than of a delegate. This, however, was
+a post much sought for by young and aspiring lawyers, as giving them
+an opportunity of mastering legal forms, displaying their abilities,
+and forming advantageous connections.
+
+This Diet renewed the Liberal struggle with increased vigor. By far
+the best talent of Hungary was ranged upon the Liberal side. Kossuth
+early made himself known as a debater, and gradually won his way
+upward, and became associated with the leading men of the Liberal
+party, many of whom were among the proudest and richest of the
+Hungarian magnates. He soon undertook to publish a report of the
+debates and proceedings of the Diet. This attempt was opposed by the
+Palatine, and a law hunted up which forbade the "printing and
+publishing" of these reports. He, for a while, evaded the law by
+having his sheet lithographed. It increased in its development of
+democratic tendencies, and in popularity, until finally the
+lithographic press was seized by Government. Kossuth, determined not
+to be baffled, still issued his journal, every copy being written
+out by scribes, of whom he employed a large number. To avoid seizure
+at the post-office, they were circulated through the local
+authorities, who were almost invariably on the Liberal side. His
+periodical penetrated into every part of the kingdom, and men saw
+with wonder a young and almost unknown public writer boldly pitting
+himself against Metternich and the whole Austrian cabinet. Kossuth
+might well, at this period, declare that he "felt within himself
+something nameless."
+
+In the succeeding Diets the Opposition grew still more determined.
+Kossuth, though twice admonished by Government, still continued his
+journal; and no longer confined himself to simple reports of the
+proceedings of the Diet, but added political remarks of the keenest
+satire and most bitter denunciation. He was aware that his course
+was a perilous one. He was once found by a friend walking in deep
+reverie in the fortress of Buda, and in reply to a question as to
+the subject of his meditations, he said, "I was looking at the
+casemates, for I fear that I shall soon be quartered there."
+Government finally determined to use arguments more cogent than
+discussion could furnish. Baron Wesselenyi, the leader of the
+Liberal party, was arrested, together with a number of his
+adherents, among whom Kossuth was of too much note to be overlooked.
+
+Kossuth became at once sanctified in the popular mind as a martyr.
+Liberal subscriptions were raised through the country for the
+benefit of his mother and sisters, whom he had supported by his
+exertions, and who were now left without protection. Wesselenyi
+became blind in prison; Lovassi, an intimate friend of Kossuth, lost
+his reason; and Kossuth himself, as was certified by his physicians,
+was in imminent risk of falling a victim to a serious disease. The
+rigor of his confinement was mitigated; he was allowed books,
+newspapers, and writing materials, and suffered to walk daily upon
+the bastions of the fortress, in charge of an officer. Among those
+who were inspired with admiration for his political efforts, and
+with sympathy for his fate, was Teresa Mezlenyi, the young daughter
+of a nobleman. She sent him books, and corresponded with him during
+his imprisonment; and they were married in 1841, soon after his
+liberation.
+
+In the second year of Kossuth's imprisonment Austria again needed
+Hungarian assistance. The threatening aspect of affairs in the East,
+growing out of the relations between Turkey and Egypt, determined
+all the great powers to increase their armaments. A demand was made
+upon the Hungarian Diet for an additional levy of 18,000 troops. A
+large body of delegates was chosen pledged to oppose this grant
+except upon condition of certain concessions, among which was a
+general amnesty, with a special reference to the cases of Wesselenyi
+and Kossuth. The more sagacious of the Conservative party advised
+Government to liberate all the prisoners, with the exception of
+Kossuth; and to do this before the meeting of the Diet, in order
+that their liberation might not be made a condition of granting the
+levy, which must be the occasion of great excitement. The cabinet
+temporized and did nothing. The Diet was opened, and the contest was
+waged during six months. The Opposition had a majority of two in the
+Chamber of Deputies, but were in a meagre minority in the Chamber of
+Magnates. But Metternich and the cabinet grew alarmed at the
+struggle, and were eager to obtain the grant of men, and to close
+the refractory Diet. In 1840 a royal rescript suddenly made its
+appearance, granting the amnesty, accompanied also with conciliatory
+remarks, and the demands of the Government for men and money were at
+once complied with.
+
+Kossuth issued from prison, in 1840, bearing in his debilitated
+frame, his pallid face, and glassy eyes, traces of severe
+sufferings, both of mind and body. He repaired for a time to a
+watering-place among the mountains to recruit his shattered health.
+His imprisonment had done more for his influence than he could have
+effected if at liberty. The visitors at the watering-place treated
+with silent respect the man who moved about among them in
+dressing-gown and slippers, and whose slow steps, and languid
+features, disfigured with yellow spots, proclaimed him an invalid.
+Abundant subscriptions had been made for his benefit and that of his
+family, and he now stood on an equality with the proudest magnates.
+These had so often used the name of the "Martyr of the Liberty of
+the Press," in pointing their speeches, that they now had no choice
+but to accept the popular verdict as their own.
+
+Soon after his liberation, Kossuth came forward as the principal
+editor of the _Pesth Gazette_ (_Pesthi Hirlap_), which a bookseller
+who enjoyed the protection of the Government had received permission
+to establish. The name of the editor was now sufficient to electrify
+the country; and Kossuth at once stood forth as the advocate of the
+rights of the lower and middle classes against the inordinate
+privileges and immunities enjoyed by the magnates. But when he went
+to the extent of demanding that the house-tax should be paid by all
+classes in the community, not even excepting the highest nobility, a
+party was raised up against him among the nobles, who established a
+paper to combat so disorganizing a doctrine. This party, backed by
+the influence of the Government, succeeded in defeating the election
+of Kossuth as member from Pesth for the Diet of 1843. He was,
+however, very active in the local assembly of the capital.
+
+Kossuth was not altogether without support among the higher nobles.
+The blind old Wesselenyi traversed the country, advocating rural
+freedom and the abolition of the urbarial burdens. Among his
+supporters at this period, also, was Count Louis Batthyanyi, one of
+the most considerable of the Magyar magnates, subsequently President
+of the Hungarian Ministry, and the most illustrious martyr of the
+Hungarian cause. Aided by his powerful support, Kossuth was again
+brought forward, in 1847, as one of the two candidates from Pesth.
+The Government party, aware that they were in a decided minority,
+limited their efforts to an attempt to defeat the election of
+Kossuth. This they endeavored to effect by stratagem, but failed
+utterly.
+
+Kossuth no sooner took his seat in the Diet than the foremost place
+was at once conceded to him. At the opening of the session he moved
+an address to the king, concluding with the petition that "liberal
+institutions, similar to those of the Hungarian Constitution, might
+be accorded to all the hereditary states, that thus might be created
+a united Austrian monarchy, based upon broad and constitutional
+principles." During the early months of the session Kossuth showed
+himself a most accomplished parliamentary orator and debater; and
+carried on a series of attacks upon the policy of the Austrian
+cabinet, which for skill and power have few parallels in the annals
+of parliamentary warfare. Those form a very inadequate conception of
+its scope and power, whose ideas of the eloquence of Kossuth are
+derived solely from the impassioned and exclamatory harangues which
+he flung out during the war. These were addressed to men wrought up
+to the utmost tension, and can be judged fairly only by men in a
+state of high excitement. He adapted his matter and manner to the
+occasion and the audience. Some of his speeches are marked by a
+stringency of logic worthy of Webster or Calhoun; but it was what
+all eloquence of a high order must ever be--"logic red-hot."
+
+Now came the French Revolution of February, 1848. The news of it
+reached Vienna on March 1st, and was received at Presburg on the 2d.
+On the following day Kossuth delivered his famous speech on the
+finances and the state of the monarchy generally, concluding with a
+proposed "Address to the Throne," urging a series of reformatory
+measures. Among the foremost of these was the emancipation of the
+country from feudal burdens--the proprietors of the soil to be
+indemnified by the state; equalizing taxation; a faithful
+administration of the revenue to be satisfactorily guaranteed; the
+further development of the representative system; and the
+establishment of a government representing the voice of, and
+responsible to, the nation. The speech produced an effect almost
+without parallel in the annals of debate. Not a word was uttered in
+reply, and the motion was unanimously carried. On March 13th took
+place the revolution in Vienna which overthrew the Metternich cabinet.
+On the 15th the constitution granted by the emperor to all the nations
+within the empire was solemnly proclaimed amid the wildest transports
+of joy. Henceforth there were to be no more Germans or Sclavonians,
+Magyars or Italians; strangers embraced and kissed each other in the
+streets, for all the heterogeneous races of the empire were now
+brothers: as likewise were all the nations of the earth at Anacharsis
+Klootz's "Feast of Pikes" in Paris on that 14th day of July in the
+year of grace 1790--and yet, notwithstanding, came the "Reign of
+Terror."
+
+Among the demands made by the Hungarian Diet was that of a separate
+and responsible ministry for Hungary. The Palatine, Archduke
+Stephen, to whom the conduct of affairs in Hungary had been
+intrusted, persuaded the emperor to accede to this demand, and on
+the following day Batthyanyi, who, with Kossuth and a deputation of
+delegates of the Diet was in Vienna, was named President of the
+Hungarian ministry. It was, however, understood that Kossuth was the
+life and soul of the new ministry.
+
+Kossuth assumed the Department of Finance, then, as long before and
+now, the post of difficulty under Austrian administration. The Diet,
+meanwhile, went on to consummate the series of reforms which Kossuth
+had so long and steadfastly advocated.
+
+Up to this time there had been, indeed, a vigorous and decided
+opposition, but no insurrection. The true cause of the Hungarian war
+was the hostility of the Austrian Government to the whole series of
+reformatory measures which had been effected through the
+instrumentality of Kossuth; but its immediate occasion was the
+jealousy which sprung up among the Servian and Croatian dependencies
+of Hungary against the Hungarian ministry. This soon broke out into
+an open revolt, headed by Baron Jellachich, who had just been
+appointed Ban, or Lord, of Croatia. How far the Serbs and Croats had
+occasion for jealousy is of little consequence to our present
+purpose to inquire; though we may say, in passing, that the
+proceedings of the Magyars toward the other Hungarian races was
+marked by a far more just and generous feeling and conduct than
+could have been possibly expected. But however the case may have
+been, as between the Magyars and Croats, as between the Hungarians
+and Austria, the hostile course of the latter is without excuse or
+palliation. The emperor had solemnly sanctioned the action of the
+Diet, and did as solemnly denounce the proceedings of Jellachich. On
+May 29th the Ban was summoned to present himself at Innsprück to
+answer for his conduct, and as he did not make his appearance, an
+imperial manifesto was issued on June 10th depriving him of all his
+dignities, and commanding the authorities at once to break off all
+intercourse with him. He, however, still continued his operations,
+and levied an army for the invasion of Hungary, and a fierce and
+bloody war of races broke out, marked on both sides by the most
+fearful atrocities.
+
+The Hungarian Diet was opened on July 5th, when the Palatine,
+Archduke Stephen, in the name of the king, solemnly denounced the
+conduct of the insurgent Croats. A few days after, Kossuth, in a
+speech in the Diet, set forth the perilous state of affairs, and
+concluded by asking for authority to raise an army of 200,000 men,
+and a large amount of money. These proposals were adopted by
+acclamation, the enthusiasm in the Diet rendering any debate
+impossible and superfluous.
+
+The Imperial forces having been victorious in Italy, and one
+pressing danger being thus averted from the empire, the Austrian
+cabinet began openly to display its hostility to the Hungarian
+movement. Jellachich repaired to Innsprück, and was openly
+acknowledged by the court, and the decree of deposition was revoked.
+Early in September Hungary and Austria stood in an attitude of
+undisguised hostility. On the 5th of that month Kossuth, though
+enfeebled by illness, was carried to the hall of the Diet, where he
+delivered a speech, declaring that so formidable were the dangers
+that surrounded the nation, that the ministers might soon be forced
+to call upon the Diet to name a dictator, clothed with unlimited
+powers, to save the country; but before taking this final step they
+would recommend a last appeal to the Imperial Government. A large
+deputation was thereupon despatched to the emperor, to lay before
+him the demands of the Hungarian nation. No satisfactory answer was
+returned, and the deputation left the imperial presence in silence.
+On their return they plucked from their caps the plumes of the
+united colors of Austria and Hungary, and replaced them with red
+feathers, and hoisted a flag of the same color on the steamer which
+conveyed them to Pesth. Their report produced the most intense
+agitation in the Diet and at the capital, but it was finally
+resolved to make one more attempt for a pacific settlement of the
+question. In order that no obstacle might be interposed by their
+presence, Kossuth and his colleagues resigned, and a new ministry
+was appointed. A deputation was sent to the National Assembly at
+Vienna, which refused to receive it. Jellachich had in the meantime
+entered Hungary with a large army, not as yet, however, openly
+sanctioned by imperial authority. The Diet, seeing the imminent
+peril of the country, conferred dictatorial powers upon Kossuth. The
+Palatine resigned his post and left the kingdom. The emperor
+appointed Count Lemberg to take the entire command of the Hungarian
+army. The Diet declared the appointment illegal, and the count,
+arriving at Pesth without escort, was slain in the streets of the
+capital by the populace, in a sudden outbreak. The emperor forthwith
+placed the kingdom under martial law, giving the supreme civil and
+military power to Jellachich. The Diet at once revolted, declared
+itself permanent, and appointed Kossuth Governor, and President of
+the Committee of Safety.
+
+There was now but one course left for the Hungarians: to maintain by
+force of arms the position they had assumed. We cannot detail the
+events of the war which followed, but merely touch upon the most
+salient points. Jellachich was speedily driven out of Hungary toward
+Vienna. In October the Austrian forces were concentrated, under
+command of Windischgrätz, to the number of 120,000 veterans, and
+were put on the march for Hungary. To oppose them the only forces
+under the command of the new government of Hungary were 20,000
+regular infantry, 7,000 cavalry, and 14,000 recruits, who received
+the name of Honveds, or "protectors of home." Of all the movements
+that followed, Kossuth was the soul and chief. His burning and
+passionate appeals stirred up the souls of the peasants, and sent
+them by thousands to the camp. He kindled enthusiasm, he organized
+that enthusiasm, and transformed those raw recruits into soldiers
+more than a match for the veteran troops of Austria. Though himself
+not a soldier, he discovered and drew about him soldiers and
+generals of a high order. The result was that Windischgrätz was
+driven back from Hungary, and of the 120,000 troops which he led
+into that kingdom in October, one-half were killed, disabled, or
+taken prisoners at the end of April. The state of the war on May 1st
+may be gathered from the imperial manifesto of that date, which
+announced that "the insurrection in Hungary had grown to such an
+extent" that the Imperial Government "had been induced to appeal to
+the assistance of his majesty the Czar of all the Russias, who
+generously and readily granted it to a most satisfactory extent."
+The issue of the contest could no longer be doubtful when the
+immense weight of Russia was thrown into the scale. In modern
+warfare there is a limit beyond which devotion and enthusiasm cannot
+supply the place of numbers and material force. And that limit was
+overpassed when Russia and Austria were pitted against Hungary.
+
+On May 1st the Russian intervention was announced. On August 11th
+Kossuth resigned his dictatorship into the hands of Görgey, who, two
+days after, in effect closed the war by surrendering to the
+Russians.
+
+The Hungarian war thus lasted a little more than eleven months,
+during which time there was but one ruling and directing spirit, and
+that was Kossuth, to whose immediate career we now return.
+
+Nothing remained for him and his companions but flight. They gained
+the Turkish frontier, and threw themselves on the hospitality of the
+sultan, who promised them a safe asylum. Russia and Austria demanded
+that the fugitives should be given up; but being supported by France
+and England, the sultan arranged a compromise by which they were
+detained in Asia Minor as prisoners. Kossuth was released in 1851,
+and made a tour of the United States, agitating in favor of Hungary.
+He never returned to his native land, but lived an exile for over
+forty years. For a while he struggled desperately to help the
+Hungarians; then, finding that the universal progress of liberal
+ideas was doing more for them than he ever could, he resigned
+himself to a peaceful life devoted to literature and science. He
+died at Turin, March 20, 1894, reverenced by all the world, and
+mourned by his countrymen with tumultuous demonstrations as their
+national hero.
+
+Kossuth occupies a position peculiarly his own, whether we regard
+the circumstances of his rise, or the feelings which have followed
+him in his fall. Born in the middle ranks of life, he raised himself
+by sheer force of intellect to the loftiest place among the proudest
+nobles on earth, without ever deserting or being deserted by the
+class from which he sprung. He effected a sweeping reform without
+appealing to any sordid or sanguinary motive. No soldier himself, he
+transformed a country into a camp, and a nation into an army. He
+transmuted his words into batteries, and his thoughts into soldiers.
+Without ever having looked upon a stricken field, he organized the
+most complete system of resistance to despotism that the history of
+revolutions has furnished. It failed, but only failed where nothing
+could have succeeded.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN ERICSSON[13]
+
+         [Footnote 13: Reprinted, by permission, from the Magazine of
+         American History.]
+
+By MARTHA J. LAMB
+
+(1803-1889)
+
+[Illustration: John Ericsson.]
+
+
+In a message, referring to the relations of our country with the
+several nations of Europe, President Harrison said: "The restoration
+of the remains of John Ericsson to Sweden afforded a gratifying
+occasion to honor the memory of the great inventor, to whose genius
+our country owes so much, and to bear witness to the unbroken
+friendship which has existed between the land which bore him and our
+own, which claimed him as a citizen."
+
+This paragraph is a forcible reminder of the impressive ceremonial
+witnessed in the streets and harbor of New York City, on Saturday,
+August 23, 1890. It had been intimated to this Government, as is
+well known, that the Government of Sweden would regard it as a
+graceful act if the remains of Captain John Ericsson should be
+conveyed to his native country upon a United States man-of-war; and
+arrangements having been completed, the Baltimore was assigned to
+the service. In committing the illustrious dead to the care of the
+commander of the Baltimore, Mr. George H. Robinson said: "We send
+him back crowned with honor, proud of the life of fifty years he
+devoted to this nation, and with gratitude for his gifts to us."
+
+John Ericsson's birthplace in Sweden is marked by a large granite
+monument erected in 1867. His father was a mining proprietor, and
+his mother an energetic, intellectual, and high-spirited woman. His
+brother, Nils, one year older than himself, was trained as an
+engineer, became chief of the construction of the system of
+government railways in Sweden, was created a baron, and retired in
+1862 with a pension larger than any before bestowed upon a Swedish
+subject. His sister Caroline, born in 1800, was a girl of unusual
+beauty. As a boy John was the wonder of the neighborhood. The
+machinery at the mines was to him an endless source of curiosity and
+delight. He was constantly trying to make models, even before he had
+learned to read. He had from his own plans constructed a miniature
+saw-mill prior to his tenth birthday, and made numerous drawings of
+a complicated character. The graphic account of his youth and early
+manhood which his biographer presents is full of suggestion and
+instruction. The boy was too much occupied with his contrivances to
+join in the pastimes of other children. His opportunities were
+unusually stimulating. The project of the Göta Canal Company, one of
+the most formidable undertakings of its kind, was revived when he
+was about ten years old, his father being appointed one of its
+engineers, holding place next to that of the chief of the work. This
+opened a new world of ideas, and the little fellow undertook all
+manner of schemes. He was independent of outside assistance. Steel
+tweezers, borrowed from his mother's dressing-case and ground to a
+point, furnished him with a drawing pen, and his compasses were made
+of birch-wood with needles inserted at the end of the legs. Later
+on, he robbed his mother's sable cloak of the hairs required for two
+small brushes, in order to complete his drawings in appropriate
+colors. The clever lad attracted the notice of some of the greatest
+mechanical draughtsmen in Sweden, who made him drawings to serve as
+models, and taught him many of the principles of the art. Finally
+the celebrated engineer, Count Platen, becoming interested,
+appointed him a cadet in the corps of mechanical engineers; and such
+was his progress in sketching profiles, maps, and drawings for the
+archives of the canal company, that in 1816, at the age of thirteen,
+he was made assistant leveller at the station of Riddarhagen. The
+next year he was employed to set out the work for six hundred
+operatives, though he was yet too small to reach the eye-piece of
+his levelling instrument without the aid of a stool carried by an
+attendant. Thus it will be seen that he was identified almost from
+his cradle with great engineering works. His father died in 1818,
+and in 1820, when seventeen, he entered the Swedish army as an
+ensign and was rapidly promoted to a lieutenancy.
+
+The skill of young Ericsson in topographical drawing was so marked
+that he was soon summoned to the royal palace to draw maps to
+illustrate the campaigns of the marshal of the empire. He also
+passed with distinction a competitive examination for an appointment
+on the survey of Northern Sweden. This new employment was exacting,
+and the pay determined by the amount of work accomplished. Mr.
+Church says: "The young surveyor from the Göta Canal was so
+indefatigable in his industry and so rapid in execution, that he
+performed double duty and was carried on the pay-roll as two persons
+in order to avoid criticism and charges of favoritism. The results
+of his labors were maps of fifty square miles of territory, still
+preserved in the archives of Stockholm."
+
+At the age of twenty-one John Ericsson is described as "a handsome,
+dashing youth, with a cluster of thick, brown, glossy curls
+encircling his white, massive forehead. His mouth was delicate but
+firm, nose straight, eyes light blue, clear and bright, with a
+slight expression of sadness, his complexion brilliant with the
+freshness and glow of healthy youth. The broad shoulders carried
+most splendidly the proud, erect head. He presented, in short, the
+very picture of vigorous manhood. A portrait of him at this age,
+painted upon ivory for his mother by an English artist named Way,
+has been preserved."
+
+Fifteen years later he was in New York, and is thus described by
+Samuel Risley: "Captain Ericsson all his life was careful of his
+personal appearance; at the time I refer to (1839) he was
+exceptional in dress, not dandified, but more in keeping with the
+present morning-call attire than an ordinary day habit. A
+close-fitting black frock surtout coat, well open at the front, with
+rolling collar, showing velvet vest and a good display of
+shirt-front; a fine gold chain hung about his neck, looped at the
+first button-hole of the vest and attached to a watch carried in the
+fob of the vest. Usually light-colored, well-fitting trousers,
+light-colored kid gloves, and a beaver hat completed the dress. To
+this add a well-built military figure, about five feet ten and
+one-half inches in height and well set-up, with broad shoulders and
+rather large hands and feet; the head well placed and supported by a
+military stock round the neck. Expressive features, blue eyes, and
+brown curly hair, fair complexion. His head was of medium size, his
+mouth well cut, upper lip a little drawn, the jaws large and firm
+set, conveying an expression of firmness and individual character.
+Up to the summer of 1842 I was in constant attendance upon the
+captain, being a sort of factotum to him in preparing his models. At
+that time he boarded at the Astor House, where I first met his wife.
+His manner with strangers was courteous and extremely taking. He
+invariably made friends of high and low alike. With those in
+immediate contact in carrying out his work he was very popular."
+
+Mr. Church, in his biography, devotes three chapters to a
+delightfully condensed account of Ericsson's career in England,
+whither he went in 1826 to exhibit his flame-engine. He quickly
+formed a partnership with John Braithwaite, a working engineer, and
+in his new field of activity produced invention after invention in
+such rapid succession that the truth reads like a fairy tale. An
+instrument for taking sea-soundings, a hydrostatic weighing-machine,
+his improvements in the steam-engine--dispensing with huge
+smoke-stacks, economizing fuel, using compressed air and the
+artificial draught--and in surface condensation, were the work of
+this period, during which he also invented the steam fire-engine,
+which excited great interest in London. The famous battle of the
+locomotives in 1829 brought the young man of twenty-six before the
+English public in a manner never to be forgotten. At that date
+Stephenson himself dared not say very much about the speed of the
+locomotive. Had he ventured to predict that it would reach twenty
+miles an hour on the railway, he would have been laughed out of
+court. He cautiously expressed his faith in the possibility of
+running it ten miles an hour, and multitudes regarded the experiment
+with consternation. There was great prejudice then existing in
+England against railroads. It was a mode of conveyance that would
+bring noble and peasant to a common level, and fashion clung
+tenaciously to its earlier inconveniences, which had at least the
+merit of being exclusive.
+
+But in spite of the baleful prophecies concerning the locomotive
+engine, the officials of the projected railroad between Liverpool
+and Manchester, where the cars were expected to be drawn by horses,
+offered a premium of £500 for the best locomotive capable of drawing
+a gross weight of twenty tons at the rate of ten miles an hour. The
+conditions required a run of seventy miles. Five months were allowed
+for building the engines. Ericsson heard of the project only seven
+weeks before the appointed time of trial, and at once determined to
+compete. He hastily built the "Novelty," assisted by Braithwaite,
+and when the exhibition came off his was practically the only
+locomotive which disputed for the supremacy with Stephenson's
+"Rocket." But a portion of the railroad had yet been finished; thus
+the competing locomotives were compelled to cover their distance by
+making twenty trips back and forth over one and three-quarter miles
+of track. The excitement was intense. The London _Times_ next
+morning said: "The 'Novelty' was the lightest and most elegant
+carriage on the road yesterday, and the velocity with which it moved
+surprised and amazed every beholder. It shot along the line at the
+amazing rate of thirty miles an hour! It seemed, indeed, to fly;
+presenting one of the most sublime spectacles of human ingenuity and
+human daring the world ever beheld."
+
+Ericsson had really built a much faster locomotive than Stephenson's
+"Rocket;" and although it had been constructed with such celerity
+that it broke down before the final point was reached, and he
+thereby lost the prize, yet the superiority of the principle
+involved in it was universally recognized. John Bourn said: "To most
+men the production of such an engine would have constituted an
+adequate claim to celebrity. In the case of Ericsson, it is only a
+single star of the brilliant galaxy with which his shield is
+spangled." "We may imagine," writes Mr. Church, "the excitement
+following the announcement in the _Times_ concerning the performance
+of the 'Novelty,' for to this engine England's great daily devoted
+chief attention." Railroad shares leaped at once to a premium, and
+excited groups gathered on 'change to discuss the wonderful event.
+The pessimists were silenced, and the art of modern railway travel
+inaugurated. A grand banquet was given in Liverpool to the directors
+and officers of the railway and to the competing locomotive
+builders. Toasts and speeches followed; and if Ericsson did not
+carry home with him the £500 offered as a prize, he at least made
+himself known to all England as one of the rising men of his
+profession.
+
+Ericsson's long-cherished plan of a caloric engine was realized in
+1833, and was hailed with astonishment by the scientific world of
+London. Lectures were delivered on it by Dr. Dionysius Lardner and
+Michael Faraday, and it was much praised by Dr. Alexander Ure and
+Sir Richard Phillips. In 1836 Ericsson invented and patented the
+screw propeller, which revolutionized navigation, and in 1837 built
+a steam vessel having twin screw propellers, which on trial towed
+the American packet-ship Toronto at the rate of five miles an hour
+on the river Thames. In 1838 he constructed the iron screw steamer
+Robert F. Stockton, which crossed the Atlantic under canvas in 1839,
+and was afterward employed as a tug-boat on the Delaware River for a
+quarter of a century. Within ten years Ericsson patented thirty
+inventions considered by him of sufficient importance to claim a
+place in the list that in 1863 numbered one hundred.
+
+A notable feature of the admirable work of Mr. Church is the
+elucidation of the truth, so often overlooked, that events never
+spring into being disjoined from antecedents leading to them. He
+explains how the varied achievements of John Ericsson were
+developed, showing with great force and in imperishable colors the
+steps to his successes, and the help the famous engineer derived in
+later life from the studies and experiments of his earlier career.
+Mr. Church, as the literary executor of Ericsson, has had unrivalled
+opportunities for examining the accumulation of data which throw
+light all along the way, and while dealing with the masterly
+engineering exploits of his subject, does not forget that he had a
+human side, and presents him with all his hopes and fears and
+failures, his aims, his obstacles, his courage, and his habits and
+eccentricities. Ericsson certainly cherished a very high ideal, and
+was free to an unusual extent from mercenary motives. His inventions
+did not always pay; he found this a weary world for those who see
+beyond their fellows. Some of his mechanical contrivances in common
+use to-day dated so far back of the memory of any one living that
+before he died he often learned that he was supposed to have copied
+from others what he, in fact, originated himself or first brought
+into use.
+
+The barriers of tradition and prejudice had to be overcome with his
+every new invention. The introduction of steam in any shape to the
+English navy was sharply opposed. It is interesting to trace the
+incidents, apparently without connection, which stand in orderly
+relations one to another as essential parts of an intelligent
+design. Ericsson was in America at the critical moment when all the
+experiences of his previous life were to be brought into full play;
+when he was to take part in an enterprise involving the existence of
+a nation, the hopes of humanity. He was ready to meet the strain of
+a demand to which no other living man was adequate. He was then
+fifty-eight years of age, with the constitution and the vital forces
+of a man of forty, and such experience in actual accomplishment as
+few acquire in the longest span of a lifetime.
+
+When he received the order of our Government for the Monitor his
+plans were already drawn. He had been at work for years perfecting
+his system of aquatic attack, originally designed for the protection
+of Sweden against foreign aggression, and had in 1854 submitted his
+drawings to the Emperor of France. The story of his proceedings in
+Washington is familiar to our readers, but in these notable volumes
+of Mr. Church it is told with a fulness of detail never before
+attempted. The Monitor in all its parts was designed by Ericsson,
+and, fortunately for the country, he was allowed to superintend its
+construction. His former plans, however, had to be carefully revised
+to meet the novel conditions of life in a submerged structure. It
+was estimated that this iron-clad vessel contained at least forty
+patentable contrivances. The entire resources of modern engineering
+knowledge were brought to bear upon the solution of the problem of
+an impregnable battery, armed with guns of the heaviest calibre then
+known, hull shot-proof from stern to stern, rudder and propeller
+protected against the enemy's fire, and above all, having the
+advantage of light draught. Ericsson was made responsible for the
+successful working of his vessel in every respect. The anxiety of
+the Government was such that every stage in the progress of the work
+toward completion was watched with restless interest. Ericsson's
+nerves and sinews seemed to be made of steel. He scarcely took time
+to eat or sleep, and he was deluged with a continuous tempest of
+criticism, warning, and advice, from those who knew nothing about
+the intricacies of science involved in the undertaking. The least
+halting, even trifling delay, confusion of mind, or weakness of
+body, and the story of Hampton Roads might not have been written.
+
+The Monitor was finished and left the harbor of New York for
+Washington on the afternoon of March 6, 1862, in tow of a tug, and
+accompanied by two naval steamers. Chief Engineer Alban S. Stimers,
+U. S. N., who was on the vessel as a passenger, described in a
+letter, dated March 9, 1862, to Ericsson, the dramatic incidents
+attending its arrival at Hampton Roads. "After a stormy passage we
+fought the Merrimac for more than three hours this forenoon, and
+sent her back to Norfolk in a sinking condition. Iron-clad against
+iron-clad, we manoeuvred about the bay here, and went at each other
+with mutual fairness. I consider that both ships were well fought.
+We were struck twenty-two times--pilot-house twice, turret nine
+times, deck three times, sides eight times. The only vulnerable
+point was the pilot-house. One of your great logs (nine by twelve
+inches thick) is broken in two. The shot struck just outside of
+where the captain had his eye, and disabled him by destroying his
+left eye and temporarily blinding the other. She tried to run us
+down and sink us as she did the Cumberland yesterday, but she got
+the worst of it. Her horn passed over our deck, and our sharp,
+upper-edged rail cut through the light iron shoe upon her stern and
+well into her oak. She will not try that again. She gave us a
+tremendous thump, but did not injure us in the least; we were just
+able to find the point of contact. The turret is a splendid
+structure. You were very correct in your estimate of the effect of
+shot upon the man on the inside of the turret, when it struck near
+him. Three men were knocked down, of whom I was one. The other two
+had to be carried below, but I was not disabled at all, and the
+others recovered before the battle was over. Captain Worden
+(afterward admiral) stationed himself at the pilot-house. Greene
+fired the guns, and I turned the turret until the captain was
+disabled and was relieved by Greene, when I managed the turret
+myself, Master Stoddard having been one of the two stunned men.
+
+"Captain Ericsson, I congratulate you upon your great success;
+thousands here this day bless you. I have heard whole crews cheer
+you; every man feels that you have saved the nation by furnishing us
+with the means to whip an iron-clad frigate that was, until our
+arrival, having it all her own way with our most powerful vessels."
+
+If space permitted, it would be interesting to trace the career of
+Ericsson in detail after the success of the Monitor. There was an
+imperative demand for armor-clads, and ere long several were built
+by the inventor and his associates. Ericsson was never idle. In
+connection with his labors upon war vessels he expended no small
+amount of ingenuity on the improvement of heavy guns, his efforts in
+this field being directed by a most exhaustive study into the
+strength of materials, the operation of explosive forces, and the
+laws governing the flight of projectiles. In 1869 he constructed for
+the Spanish Government a fleet of thirty steam gunboats, intended to
+guard Cuba against filibustering parties. In 1881 he devised his
+latest war vessel, the Destroyer, the object of which he said was
+"simply to demonstrate the practicability of submarine artillery,
+unquestionably the most effective, as well as the cheapest, device
+for protecting the sea-ports of the Union against iron-clad ships. I
+do not," he continued, "seek emoluments, as I am financially
+independent; but I am anxious to benefit the great and liberal
+country which has enabled me to carry out important works which I
+should not have carried out on a monarchical soil." His
+investigations included computations of the influences which retard
+the earth's rotary motion; he erected a "sun motor" in 1883, to
+develop the power obtained from the supply of mechanical energy in
+the sun, and he contributed numerous valuable papers to various
+journals in America and Europe on scientific, naval, and mechanical
+themes.
+
+The year in which John Ericsson reached the culmination of his fame,
+1862, was the same in which his brother Nils retired from active
+life in Sweden. The latter had retained his position on the Göta
+Canal when his brother left it in 1820, and gradually won his way to
+fame and fortune. "He was a man of industry and energy, of sterling
+integrity and public spirit, and an excellent organizer; while his
+conservative and cautious temperament and his skill in bending
+others to his purposes enabled him to make the most of his
+opportunities." After he received his title he altered the spelling
+of his name and became Baron Ericson. This change gave great offence
+to John, who wrote to Nils: "I can never forget the unpleasantness
+caused me by this annulling of relationship. Possibly your wife has
+had her share in it. If so, she will find some day that the
+blotted-out letter will cost her children half a million."
+
+Some of the most interesting chapters in the work of Mr. Church
+relate to the personal characteristics of John Ericsson. He was
+generous to his friends, and his benefactions to Sweden were
+considerable. The financial side of his affairs from year to year
+appears, as well as the record of his failures and successes. It is
+difficult to grasp the whole man and present him to the reader in
+all his many-sided aspects, or to touch upon the variety of his
+studies, endeavors, schemes, and achievements, without danger of
+bewilderment. His biographer has done all this, however, in the most
+skilful and acceptable manner.
+
+A list of the honors conferred upon Ericsson would fill one of our
+pages, and some of the medals received were very beautiful. He was
+decorated as Knight of the Order of Vasa, which was founded by
+Gustavus III. to reward important service to the nation; he was made
+Knight Commander of the Order of the North Star, for promoting the
+public good and useful institutions; a Commander of the Order of St.
+Olaf, to reward distinction in the arts and sciences; received the
+Grand Cross of the Order of Naval Merit, with the white badge and
+star, from King Alfonso of Spain, which confers personal nobility
+and bestowed upon Ericsson the title of "Excellency;" a special gold
+medal from the Emperor of Austria, in behalf of science; a gold
+medal from the Society of Iron-Masters in Sweden; thanks under the
+royal seal and signature from Sweden; joint resolutions of thanks
+from the United States Congress; thanks from the Legislatures of New
+York and of other States; from the Chamber of Commerce; from boards
+of trade in many cities; and he was elected to honorary membership
+in scientific, historical, literary, religious, and agricultural
+institutions innumerable. Among them all he took the most pride in
+his simple title of captain, and in the diploma of LL. D. received
+from the Wesleyan University in 1862.
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON[14]
+
+         [Footnote 14: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON
+
+(1805-1879)
+
+
+William Lloyd Garrison, whose name is indissolubly connected with the
+abolition of American slavery, was born in the seaport town of
+Newburyport, Mass., on December 10, 1805. His father, Abijah Garrison,
+was a sea-captain who came from New Brunswick to settle in
+Newburyport. Deserting his wife and children while the subject of this
+sketch was in infancy, his subsequent career is shrouded in mystery.
+Fanny Lloyd, the mother of William Lloyd Garrison, was a woman of
+remarkable character and personal attraction, with an intense
+religious nature. Dependent upon her own efforts for the support of
+the family, she cheerfully took up the calling of monthly nurse, and
+endeavored to rear her children with care and forethought, and with
+especial attention to their religious training. Upon her removal to
+Lynn, in 1812, Lloyd was left to the care of Deacon Ezekiel Bartlett
+and was sent to the Grammar School until, at the age of nine, he
+joined his mother in Lynn and was taught shoemaking in the shop of
+Gamaliel W. Oliver, a kind and excellent member of the Society of
+Friends, where his elder brother James was already an apprentice. In
+1815, Mr. Paul Newhall, a shoe manufacturer of the same town, deciding
+to establish business in Baltimore, invited Mrs. Garrison and her two
+boys to accompany him. There Lloyd was employed as an errand-boy and
+James was again apprenticed at shoemaking. Mr. Newhall's venture
+proving unsuccessful, Mrs. Garrison was constrained to resume nursing
+and Lloyd was sent back to Newburyport, his brother betaking himself
+to the sea. From Newburyport he was sent to Haverhill to learn
+cabinet-making; but, in spite of kind treatment, he disliked the
+occupation and ran away from his master, returning to Newburyport to
+live again with his mother's old friend, Deacon Bartlett. In 1818,
+Ephraim W. Allen, proprietor of the Newburyport _Herald_, accepted
+Lloyd, then thirteen years of age, as an apprentice and taught him the
+printer's trade. Here at once he found a vocation suited to his tastes
+and became a rapid and accurate compositor. The printing-office proved
+an excellent school for the young man, developing his literary taste
+and ambition. He was fond of reading, and delighted in poetry and
+fiction. Politics especially attracted him, and at the age of sixteen
+he wrote anonymous articles for the columns of the _Herald_. His first
+contribution was over the signature of "An Old Bachelor." He was an
+ardent Federalist and his political articles attracted attention by
+their forcible reasoning and direct style. Caleb Cushing, then editor
+of the _Herald_, discovering the lad's abilities, encouraged and
+befriended him. In 1826, Mr. Garrison, closing his apprenticeship with
+the _Herald_, became editor and publisher of the _Free Press_
+(Newburyport), within a few months of his majority.
+
+[Illustration: William Lloyd Garrison.]
+
+It was to this paper that Whittier made his first poetical
+contributions anonymously, and, upon the discovery of his true name,
+Mr. Garrison sought him out and encouraged him in his youthful
+efforts.
+
+After a brief existence of six months, the _Free Press_ was sold and
+Mr. Garrison again became a journeyman printer, soon seeking
+employment in Boston, where, after various vicissitudes, he was
+employed by Rev. William Collier, a Baptist city missionary, upon
+_The National Philanthropist_, devoted to the "suppression of
+intemperance and kindred vices," becoming its editor in 1828. The
+paper had the distinction of being the first temperance journal ever
+printed, and among the earliest evidences of Mr. Garrison's interest
+in the slavery question was an editorial article by him commenting
+severely on the bill passed by the House of Assembly of South
+Carolina to forbid the teaching of reading and writing to the
+colored people.
+
+To Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker, and at that time editor of the _Genius
+of Universal Emancipation_, in Baltimore--a paper devoted to the
+gradual abolition of slavery--belongs the honor of first attempting
+to awaken public sentiment on the subject. Upon his visit to Boston,
+August 7, 1828, he made the acquaintance of Garrison, whose eyes he
+opened to the iniquity of the slave system. During the same year Mr.
+Garrison accepted the invitation of a committee of prominent
+citizens of Bennington, Vt., to edit the _Journal of the Times_, a
+weekly newspaper devoted to the re-election of John Quincy Adams
+against Andrew Jackson. While started for campaign purposes, the
+_Journal of the Times_ declared for independence of party and
+advocated the suppression of intemperance, the gradual emancipation
+of the slave, the doctrines of peace, and the so-called American
+system of protection for fostering native industry.
+
+Attracted by the anti-slavery utterances of Mr. Garrison, Lundy
+resolved to invite him to share in the editorship of his paper,
+walking from Baltimore to Bennington for the purpose. His
+earnestness had the desired effect upon Mr. Garrison, who accepted
+his proffer and relinquished the _Journal of the Times_. Before
+going to Baltimore Mr. Garrison was invited to address the
+Congregational societies of Boston on July 4th, at the Park Street
+Church, and took for his theme "Dangers to the Nation." The poet
+John Pierpont was present and wrote a hymn for the occasion. The
+address was a stirring denunciation of slavery and a rebuke to the
+nation for its pretentious devotion to liberty. The speaker was
+accused by a Boston paper of slandering his country and blaspheming
+the Declaration of Independence.
+
+Upon his arrival at Baltimore, Garrison, having convinced himself of
+the necessity of immediate and unconditional emancipation, it was
+agreed, inasmuch as Lundy adhered to the methods of gradual
+emancipation, that each should sign his own editorials.
+
+Mr. Todd, a Newburyport merchant, having allowed his ship to be used
+in the inter-state slave trade between Baltimore and New Orleans,
+Mr. Garrison faithfully denounced in unmeasured terms his
+fellow-townsman, and asserted the equal wickedness of the domestic
+slave trade with that of the foreign traffic, which, at that time,
+was in the law considered piracy. Arrested, tried, and convicted of
+libel, although the facts were proven, Garrison was incarcerated in
+the Baltimore jail, April 17, 1830, in default of a fine of $50 with
+$50 costs. Undaunted in his captivity, he continued to write his
+protest against slavery and to record in verse his feelings. His
+famous sonnet, "The Immortal Mind," was written with pencil upon the
+walls of his cell. Liberated at the expiration of forty-nine days,
+through the generosity of Arthur Tappan, of New York, who paid his
+fine, Garrison visited Boston and Newburyport, endeavoring to speak
+in both places, but the doors of halls and churches were closed
+against him. At last the hall used by a society of avowed infidels,
+in Boston, to whom Abner Kneeland preached, was opened to Mr.
+Garrison for three anti-slavery lectures, and among the audience at
+his first lecture were Samuel J. May, Samuel E. Sewall, and A.
+Bronson Alcott, who then gave in their adhesion to the cause. Dr.
+Lyman Beecher was also present but made no sign.
+
+On January 1, 1831, appeared the first number of _The Liberator_, in
+Boston, bearing for its motto, "Our Country is the World--Our
+Countrymen are Mankind." Mr. Garrison, as editor, was assisted by
+Isaac Knapp, a fellow-printer from Newburyport, as publisher. The
+paper was issued at No. 6 Merchants' Hall, at the corner of Congress
+and Water Streets, in the third story, the partners making their
+home in the printing-office. It was this office that Harrison Gray
+Otis, the mayor, at the request of ex-Senator Hayne, ferreted out
+through his police, describing it as "an obscure hole," containing
+the editor and a negro boy, "his only visible auxiliary," while his
+supporters were "a very few insignificant persons of all colors."
+Lowell has thus described it in a different spirit:
+
+  "In a small chamber, friendless and unseen,
+      Toiled o'er his types, one poor, unlearned young man;
+   The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean,
+      Yet there the freedom of a race began."
+
+In the initial editorial appeared the famous declaration of Mr.
+Garrison, "I am in earnest--I will not equivocate--I will not
+excuse--I will not retreat a single inch--and I will be heard."
+Although its circulation was meagre, the publication of _The
+Liberator_ made a tremendous sensation throughout the South,
+bringing upon its editor abusive and threatening language, and, at
+the North, unpopularity and persecution. The Legislature of Georgia
+offered a reward of $5,000 for his arrest and conviction.
+
+In 1832, the New England Anti-Slavery Society was organized in
+Boston, and the campaign for "immediate and unconditional
+emancipation" begun. The Colonization Society, which Mr. Garrison
+formerly supported but later denounced, became the object of special
+attack as an ally of the slave power, and, to counteract its
+designs, he sailed for England, May 2, 1833, to expose its
+proslavery purposes to the English abolitionists. He was cordially
+received by Wilberforce, Buxton, Zachary, Macaulay, Daniel
+O'Connell, and their associates in the struggle for West India
+emancipation, and before he left the kingdom he witnessed the
+passage of the Emancipation Act, and was present at the funeral of
+Wilberforce, in Westminster Abbey. Returning from his successful
+mission abroad he narrowly escaped the hands of a New York mob on
+landing upon his native soil.
+
+In December, 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed, in
+Philadelphia, and Mr. Garrison drew up its famous Declaration of
+Sentiments, which numbered among its signers many of the men and
+women destined to be distinguished in the anti-slavery cause, among
+whom was the poet Whittier.
+
+On September 4, 1834, Mr. Garrison was married to Miss Helen Eliza
+Benson, of Brooklyn, Conn.; a fortunate and happy union.
+
+In 1835, the eminent English orator, George Thompson, came by
+invitation to the United States to assist in the emancipation of the
+American, as he had of the West Indian, slave. The announcement
+that he would speak at a meeting of the Ladies' Anti-Slavery
+Society, held in Boston, October 21st, of the same year, was the
+occasion of a mob composed of wealthy and respectable citizens of
+Boston who aimed to suppress free speech and tar and feather Mr.
+Thompson. He was, however, prevented from attending by his friends,
+but the fury of the mob fell upon Mr. Garrison, who was seized and
+led through the streets with a rope around his body, from which
+position he was rescued through the efforts of Mayor Lyman and
+imprisoned for safety in the Leverett Street jail. This outrage
+created new friends and gave fresh impetus to the abolition
+movement.
+
+In 1840 Mr. Garrison again visited England as a delegate of the
+World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London, in which body, however,
+he declined to sit, because the women who were his fellow-delegates
+from America were excluded.
+
+Occupied continuously with the care of _The Liberator_ and in
+lecturing, Mr. Garrison led an intensely active life, not confining
+himself alone to the anti-slavery reform but embracing among other
+reforms those of temperance, non-resistance, women's rights, and
+religious freedom. For, while educated by his mother in the strict
+tenets of the Baptist faith, he early experienced a change of
+theological views and cast off sectarian bonds. _The Liberator_ was
+used for the expression of his individual beliefs and was not the
+organ of any society.
+
+In 1846, the Free Church of Scotland having sent emissaries to the
+United States to collect funds from the slaveholders, Mr. Garrison
+again went to England to urge the Church to return the money thus
+contributed, and, in company with George Thompson, Frederick
+Douglass, Henry C. Wright and others, agitated the question
+throughout Scotland.
+
+Convinced that the constitutional compact of the North with the
+South to guard and protect slavery was immoral and unjust, in 1843
+Mr. Garrison raised the banner of No Union with Slave-Holders, and
+advocated the dissolution of the Union for the sake of freedom, a
+step which added fresh fuel to the flames of persecution and
+incurred the loss of many lukewarm adherents.
+
+In 1850, the apostasy of Daniel Webster and the passage of the
+Fugitive Slave Law increased the national ferment. The same year
+witnessed the famous Rynder's mob, in New York, and the anti-slavery
+meeting at the Tabernacle, at which Mr. Garrison spoke, was
+violently broken up.
+
+The abolition movement had now assumed formidable proportions,
+dominating the national parties and dictating issues. The Whig party
+fell to pieces in consequence, and to it succeeded the Republican
+party, with Sumner, Seward, Wilson, Giddings, and other earnest men
+as leaders. Meanwhile Harriet Beecher Stowe, by her famous novel,
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin," had given a vivid picture of the wrongs of
+American slavery to the world. The "irrepressible conflict" was now
+rapidly tending to its crisis, and, on the election of Abraham
+Lincoln to the Presidency by the Republican party, in 1860, the
+signal for civil war was given, and, in 1861, the struggle of arms
+inaugurated by the attack on Fort Sumter replaced the peaceful
+crusade of the abolitionists.
+
+The moral agitation of thirty years had produced its legitimate
+results, and when, in 1863, the President promulgated the
+emancipation proclamation the anti-slavery chapter was closed. The
+Union, which heretofore had been paramount to liberty, was now
+subordinated to it, and Mr. Garrison's antagonism necessarily ceased
+with the new amendment to the Constitution. He had been accustomed
+to denounce that instrument as a "covenant with death and an
+agreement with hell," but, as he expressed it, he had "never
+expected to see Death and Hell secede." Foreseeing the inevitable
+consequence of the war, he gave heartily his moral support to the
+Government in the struggle between it and the slave power. His
+non-resistance principles and abhorrence of war in no way diminished
+his interest in the great conflict, and his sympathies of necessity
+were with the soldiers of freedom. His eldest son, George Thompson
+Garrison, not sharing his father's scruples, enlisted in the
+Fifty-fifth Colored Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, attaining
+the rank of captain.
+
+The renomination of Lincoln for a second term, in 1864, developed a
+breach in the ranks of the old abolitionists, Mr. Garrison and his
+adherents supporting Lincoln, and others, under the lead of Wendell
+Phillips, advocating the choice of General Frémont. The latter
+candidate, however, withdrew from the field before the election.
+
+In April, 1865, Mr. Garrison, with his English friend George
+Thompson, was invited by the Government to be present as its guest
+at the ceremony of raising the Stars and Stripes above the
+surrendered Fort Sumter, and was received at Charleston with great
+enthusiasm by the emancipated slaves. The news of President
+Lincoln's assassination hastened the return of the party to the
+North.
+
+The practical extermination of the slave system by the adoption of
+the 13th Amendment convinced Mr. Garrison that the purpose of the
+Anti-Slavery Society and of _The Liberator_ had been accomplished.
+He therefore withdrew from one and discontinued the other. After
+thirty-five years of a stormy and precarious existence the last
+number of _The Liberator_ was issued December 29, 1865. "Nothing
+could have been more in keeping with the uniform wisdom of your
+anti-slavery leadership than the time you chose for resigning it,"
+wrote Lowell to Mr. Garrison a year later.
+
+The recognition of the pioneer's unselfish service thereupon took
+shape in a national testimonial reaching a sum exceeding thirty
+thousand dollars, thenceforth lifting his life above the pecuniary
+cares which had so long weighed upon it. A domestic grief in the
+shape of a paralytic shock to his faithful wife occurred in
+December, 1863, compelling a change of home from the city to an
+attractive suburban house in Roxbury, known as Rockledge.
+
+Although his great life-work was finished, Mr. Garrison abated no
+activity in the various reforms in which he had enlisted. Both with
+voice and pen he reached a wider and more attentive public, pleading
+for justice to the freedman, for the legal emancipation of women,
+the right of the Chinese to free immigration and Christian
+treatment, freedom of trade (for he early eschewed his youthful
+belief in the protective system), and for kindred causes.
+
+Visiting England for the fourth time in 1867, a public breakfast was
+given in Mr. Garrison's honor at St. James's Hall, June 29th. John
+Bright presided, and among the addresses of welcome were those of
+Earl Russell, the Duke of Argyll, John Stuart Mill, George Thompson,
+and W. Vernon Harcourt. Later the freedom of the city of Edinburgh
+was conferred upon the American abolitionist, and in August he
+attended the International Anti-Slavery Conference at Paris,
+representing the American Freedman's Union Commission, and meeting
+Laboulaye, Cochin, and other eminent Frenchmen.
+
+The troubled period of reconstruction, involving the defence of the
+freedmen's rights, found no more interested observer and participant
+than Mr. Garrison. The former hostile treatment which had been meted
+out to him by press and party was of the past, and, like Lincoln,
+
+  "He heard the hisses change to cheers,
+   The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise,
+   And took both in the same unwavering mood."
+
+Unique among reformers, he received in life the reverence that
+usually reveals itself in post-mortem honors which indicate the late
+awakening of public consciousness and suggest the pathos of their
+delay.
+
+The felicities of domestic life were his in more than ordinary
+measure, and "honor, love, obedience, troops of friends," made his
+closing years as serene as his opening career had been stormy.
+Occasional ailments reminded him of advancing age, but his
+temperamental cheerfulness and faith in human progress never forsook
+him.
+
+The death of his dear wife, in 1876, was a visible blow to him, and
+in the next year, for physical and mental recuperation, he visited
+England again for the last time, with his son Francis, enjoying a
+delightful reunion with old friends and making new ones, as was his
+wont.
+
+In May, 1879, during a visit to his daughter in New York, he
+breathed his last on the 24th of the month, with all his children
+about him. He left four sons, named respectively, George Thompson,
+William Lloyd, Wendell Phillips, and Francis Jackson, and an only
+daughter, Helen Francis, the wife of Henry Villard. Two others, a
+daughter and a son, died at an early age.
+
+In 1885, Mr. Garrison's biography, written by his sons Wendell
+Phillips and Francis Jackson, was published by the Century Company,
+in four volumes, octavo. They contain not only the personal details
+of a famous career, but a careful history of the abolition struggle.
+To them the future historian must look for the most faithful picture
+of the anti-slavery times and their leader.
+
+A bronze statue of heroic size, executed by Olin L. Warner, of New
+York, representing Mr. Garrison in a sitting posture, was presented
+to the city of Boston by several eminent citizens, in 1886, and is
+placed on Commonwealth Avenue, opposite the Hotel Vendome.
+
+Mr. Garrison's calm estimate of himself has been preserved and may
+fitly conclude this sketch:
+
+"The truth is, he who commences any reform which at last becomes one
+of transcendent importance and is crowned with victory, is always
+ill-judged and unfairly estimated. At the outset he is looked upon
+with contempt, and treated in the most opprobrious manner, as a wild
+fanatic or a dangerous disorganizer. In due time the cause grows and
+advances to its sure triumph; and in proportion as it nears the
+goal, the popular estimate of his character changes, till finally
+excessive panegyric is substituted for outrageous abuse. The praise,
+on the one hand, and the defamation on the other, are equally
+unmerited. In the clear light of reason, it will be seen that he
+simply stood up to discharge a duty which he owed to his God, to his
+fellow-men, to the land of his nativity."
+
+[Signature: William Lloyd Garrison.]
+
+
+
+
+ELISHA KENT KANE[15]
+
+         [Footnote 15: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By General A. W. GREELY
+
+(1820-1857)
+
+[Illustration: Elisha Kent Kane.]
+
+
+Elisha Kent Kane, son of Judge John K. Kane, was born in
+Philadelphia, February 3, 1820. In his youth he displayed those
+qualifications of ceaseless activity, daring adventure, and strong
+personal courage which characterized his mature manhood. Inclined to
+all efforts involving physical hardships and contact with nature,
+his early education was devoted to civil engineering and such
+natural sciences as chemistry, geography, geology, and mineralogy.
+Unfortunately, in his sixteenth year, chronic and functional heart
+disease developed, which intermittently affected him through life
+and deterred him from the profession of an engineer. Applying
+himself to medicine, he graduated therein in 1842 at the University
+of Pennsylvania, in the meantime having served as a resident
+physician of the Pennsylvania Hospital. His inaugural medical
+thesis, based on personal experiments and observations, gave him a
+reputation which augured professional prominence. In 1843 he was
+appointed physician to the United States embassy to China, under
+Caleb Cushing, who was charged with the negotiation of a treaty with
+that country. At the way ports and during the tedious intervals of
+the treaty negotiations, Kane lost no opportunity of travel and
+adventure. With Baron Löe he visited the Philippine Islands and the
+volcano of Tael. Not content with the usual point of view, and
+despite the protestations of the native guides, he was lowered two
+hundred feet in the crater, whence he scrambled downward to the
+smoking sulphur lake and dipped his specimen bottles into its
+steaming waters. In his ascent the loose, heated ashes charred his
+boots and gave way under his feet, the sulphur vapors nearly
+asphyxiated him, he fell repeatedly, and was barely able to tie the
+bamboo rope around him. Drawn up in an exhausted condition, and
+carried to a neighboring hermitage, he barely escaped violence at
+the hands of the offended natives, who considered his rash feat a
+sacrilege.
+
+Resigning his appointment with the legation, Kane established
+himself as a physician at Whampoa, on the Canton River, where
+illness shortly broke up his professional practice. Fortunately for
+his future fame he was unsuccessful in his application to the
+Spanish Government for permission to practise medicine at Manilla,
+and Kane returned to the United States by the way of Singapore,
+India, Egypt, and Europe, his journey marked by adventure and
+danger. In these, as in all other sea voyages, he suffered
+excessively from sea-sickness, which required all of his indomitable
+will to endure with equanimity.
+
+In 1846 he was commissioned assistant surgeon in the United States
+Navy; his first sea duty took him to the west coast of Africa, where
+coast fever invalided him within ten months. His desire for active
+service was so great that before his health was re-established he
+obtained orders from the Secretary of the Navy to proceed to
+head-quarters of the army, then in the City of Mexico, for duty in
+connection with the collection of data relative to field hospitals
+and surgical statistics. Here his activity and daring resulted in
+his being wounded in a guerilla skirmish.
+
+Assigned temporarily to a surveying vessel, circumstances soon
+determined Kane's career and gave full scope to his enthusiastic
+energies, and insured his future fame. The appeals of Lady Franklin,
+the recommendations of President Taylor, and the generosity of Henry
+Grinnell, had culminated in the organization of a search expedition
+for Franklin in the Arctic regions. It was provided that the vessels
+should be manned by volunteers from the Navy, and among those
+offering their services for this mission of humanity none was more
+importunate than Kane. Persistent efforts brought him orders for
+this fateful voyage while bathing in the tepid waters of the Gulf of
+Mexico, and ten days later he sailed from New York for the icy
+wastes of the North as surgeon of De Haven's flag-ship, the Advance.
+This search, known in Arctic history as the First Grinnell
+Expedition, was made under a joint resolution of the Congress of the
+United States, dated May 2, 1850, "to accept and attach to the Navy
+two vessels offered by Henry Grinnell, Esq., to be sent to the
+Arctic seas in search of Sir John Franklin and his companions." Two
+very small sailing brigs constituted the fleet, the flag-ship
+Advance, commanded by De Haven, an officer of Antarctic experience
+under Wilkes, and the Rescue, under Master Griffin; the entire party
+numbered thirty-three officers and men.
+
+Their objective point was Lancaster Sound and its westward
+extension, Barrow Strait, whence either or both Wellington Channel
+and Cape Walker were to be visited. The squadron passed safely
+through Davis Strait, and skirting the dreaded land-ice of Melville
+Bay, reached Cape York after three weeks of constant and dangerous
+struggle with the heavy ice, which nearly destroyed the Rescue,
+borne almost on her beam-ends by the enormous pressure from a moving
+ice-pack. De Haven fell in with the English squadrons on the same
+errand, August 19, 1850, and, entering Lancaster Sound with his
+British consorts, devoted his energies to the search in hand.
+Griffin, of the Rescue, shared with Captain Ommaney, R. N., the
+honors of the discovery, at Beechy island, of the wintering-place of
+Franklin's squadron in 1845-46. Later three graves of members of
+Franklin's party were found, and numerous evidences of the good
+condition and activity of the expedition during that winter. About
+three weeks later, on September 10, 1850, De Haven concluded that
+the position attained was not sufficiently advantageous to justify
+his wintering, and so decided to return to the United States.
+Unfortunately, strong gales and very cold weather prevented
+immediate action, and in a few days both brigs were frozen immovably
+in an enormous ice-pack, where they were destined to drift
+helplessly to and fro at the mercy of the winds and currents for
+many months.
+
+Beset in Wellington Channel, to the north of Beechy Island, the
+American squadron first found itself drifting slowly, but with
+alarming steadiness, to the north, into waters and along coasts that
+had, as far as they then knew, never been visited. The drift carried
+the Advance to latitude 75° 25' north, longitude 91° 31' west, and
+on September 22d they discovered new land, to which De Haven gave
+the merited name of Grinnell. It proved to be an integral part of
+North Devon, of which it was the northwestern extension. Every few
+days there was a partial breaking up of the pack and consequent
+danger of destruction. On one occasion, says Kane: "We are lifted
+bodily eighteen inches out of water. The hummocks are reared up
+around the ship, so as to rise a couple of feet above our bulwarks,
+five feet above our deck. They are very often ten and twelve feet
+high, and threaten to overwhelm us. Add to this, darkness, snow,
+cold, and the absolute destitution of surrounding shores." The
+temperature fell below zero and the ships seemed destined to winter
+in Wellington Channel, but fortunately a strong northwest gale, in
+conjunction with heavy tides, disintegrated the main pack and set
+ships, ice and all, southward into Barrow Strait. Here they fell
+under the action of a southeasterly current and, drifting all
+winter, passed slowly through Lancaster Sound into Baffin Bay, where
+the opening polar summer found them yet fast in the ice, from which
+the two brigs were freed off Cape Walsingham, June 5, 1851, after
+drifting in eight and a half months a distance of ten hundred and
+fifty miles. It is impossible to adequately describe their physical
+discomforts and dangers, the mental depression of the sunless
+midwinter of eight weeks, and the even harder experiences of the
+Arctic spring-tide, when excessive cold and increasing lassitude
+made steady inroads on their impaired constitutions. Kane tells us
+they were continually harassed by uncertainties as to their ultimate
+fate. Yesterday the unbroken floe, stretching as far as the eye
+could reach, seemed so firm and stable as to insure months of quiet,
+uninterrupted life. Today, the groaning, uneasy pack, yielding to an
+unseen power, split and cracked in all directions, throwing up huge
+masses of solid ice, that threatened to destroy instantly the ship,
+and occasionally opened in wide cracks through which rushed the open
+sea. Indeed, the conditions were so critical and the ice-movements
+so rapid, that the entire party, within the brief space of
+twenty-four hours, had four times made ready to abandon their
+vessels.
+
+In March the cold became intense, and for a week it averaged
+fifty-three degrees below the freezing-point. Scurvy assailed all
+but five of the crew, and De Haven was so ill that all his duties
+devolved on Griffin, who heroically bore up under disease and the
+mental and moral responsibilities that the situation forced on him.
+In all his efforts Griffin had no more effective coadjutor than the
+fleet-surgeon, Kane. Whether acting as a medical officer, treating
+skilfully the diseased crew; as a hunter, supplementing their scanty
+stock of anti-scorbutic food with the fresh meat of the seal; or as
+a man, devising means of amusement and stimulating them to mental
+and physical exertions, Kane incessantly displayed such qualities of
+cheerfulness, activity, and ingenuity as tended to dispel the pall
+of despair that sometimes enveloped the whole expedition.
+
+When release from the ice permitted the voyage to be renewed, De
+Haven decided to refit in the Greenland ports and again return to
+Lancaster Sound; fortunately, as the squadron was not fitted for a
+second year's work, the ice in Melville Bay was such as to prevent
+immediate passage, and so they turned southward, reaching the United
+States on September 30, 1851.
+
+Such desperate experiences as those involved in the midwinter drift
+of the Advance, would have deterred most men for a time from a
+second voyage, but with Kane the stimulus to future work apparently
+increased with every league that he sailed southward. The ship was
+hardly in port before he initiated a plan for another expedition in
+the spring of 1852. This failing he wrote Lady Franklin in May,
+offering to go with Captain Penny, or any good sailing-master, to
+give his services without pay, and pledging himself to go to work
+and raise funds.
+
+Finding it impossible to go with any British expedition, he turned
+his entire efforts to organizing another from America. His chivalric
+enthusiasm enlisted the sympathies and active support of Henry
+Grinnell and George Peabody, the first loaning the ship and the
+latter contributing $10,000 for general expenses. The United States
+again aided, not only putting Kane on sea-pay, but also attached ten
+men of the Navy, under government pay. Instruments, provisions,
+etc., were likewise supplied by the Secretary of the Navy, and aid
+in other directions was afforded by the Smithsonian Institution, the
+Naval Observatory, and other scientific associations. At this
+juncture the discoveries of Captain Inglefield, R. N., in Smith
+Sound, afforded to Kane a new route for his activities. The scheme,
+as far as the search for Franklin was concerned, was well-meaning,
+but none the less fallacious and illogical. Kane was personally
+cognizant of the fact that Franklin had gone into Lancaster Sound,
+and had wintered in 1845-46 at Beechy Island, plainly following the
+direct and positive orders of the Admiralty, that he should push
+southward from Cape Walker to the neighborhood of Behring Strait.
+Moreover, the last mail ever received from the Franklin expedition
+contained a letter from Captain Fitz-James, in which he stated that
+Franklin had shown him the orders, expressed his disbelief in an
+open sea to the north, and had given "a pleasant account of his
+expectations of being able to get through the ice on the north coast
+of America."
+
+A search for Franklin by the way of Smith Sound, seventeen degrees
+of longitude and four degrees of latitude to the north and east of
+his last known position, was to assume not only that Franklin had
+disobeyed the strict letter of his instructions, but had also
+abandoned his voyage after having accomplished one-third of the
+distance from Greenland to Behring Strait.
+
+As the initiator and inspirer of the expedition, Kane was the
+natural head of it, but there were difficulties in the way.
+
+The assignment of a surgeon to the command of a naval expedition was
+unprecedented; but somehow Kane succeeded in overcoming even the
+time-honored observances of the Navy, and was placed in command by a
+formal order of the Secretary of the Navy in November, 1852.
+
+Kane repeatedly set forth his belief in an open Polar sea, and
+announced his expectation of reaching it. The expedition was not
+alone a proposed search for Franklin, but especially contemplated
+the continuation to the northward of the discoveries made in 1851 by
+Captain Inglefield, on the west coast of Greenland. Kane declared
+his intention of reaching "its most northern attainable point, and
+thence pressing on toward the Pole as far as boats or sleds could
+carry us, examine the coast lines for vestiges of the lost party,"
+and "seeking the _open sea_ ... launch our little boats, and embark
+upon its waters."
+
+On May 30, 1853, the expedition left New York in the sailing brig
+Advance, there being seventeen members all told. The vessel was
+stanch, well-fitted, and suitable, the scientific instruments
+satisfactory, but the provisions were illy chosen for Arctic
+service, and the equipment in many respects inadequate or deficient.
+The Greenland ports supplied skin-clothing, dogs, and Eskimo
+dog-drivers; the latter being destined to play an important part in
+establishing harmonious relations with the Etah natives. On reaching
+Melville Bay, Kane decided to take the middle passage, direct
+through the dreaded pack--a most venturesome route for a
+sailing-vessel. Favored by an off-shore gale, the Advance escaped
+with the loss of a whaleboat, and emerged into the open sea near
+Cape York, known as the North Water. Stopped by the ice, Kane wisely
+decided to cache his metallic life-boat, filled with boat-stores, on
+Littleton Island, so as to secure his retreat, since, as he says:
+"My mind was made up from the first that we are to force our way to
+the north as far as the elements will let us." The ice opening with
+the tide, Kane rounded Cape Hatherton and was now in Kane Sea; but
+the Advance was immediately driven into a cove for shelter. At the
+first opportunity sail was again made and a short distance gained to
+the east-northeast, when a violent gale nearly wrecked her. Repeated
+efforts to work the vessel to the eastward, along a lee coast,
+destroyed fittings and boat, and were so fruitful in danger that on
+August 26th seven out of his eight officers addressed Kane in
+writing, to the effect "that a further progress to the North was
+impossible, and [they] were in favor of returning southward to
+winter." Unfortunately, Kane was not "able conscientiously to take
+the same view," as such retreat would have left him in a less
+favorable situation to pursue his explorations. Two weeks longer the
+brig was warped to the east during high water, whenever she was not
+jammed by huge floes against the rugged coast; but at low water the
+brig grounded and was daily in danger of total destruction. Finally,
+on September 9th, she was put in winter-quarters in 78° 37' N., 71°
+14' W., in Rensselaer Harbor, which, says Kane, "we were fated never
+to leave together--a long resting-place to her, for the same ice is
+round her still." Winter now advanced with startling rapidity and
+excessive severity; freezing temperatures now permanently obtained,
+the water-fowl were gone, and the scanty vegetation blighted. All
+were busy, some constructing a building for magnetic and
+meteorological observations, others making journeys along the
+eastern coast. Kane visited the high land adjoining Mary Minturn
+River, some fifty miles away, whence he could see Washington Land in
+the vicinity of Cape Constitution. Hayes and Wilson journeyed on the
+inland ice, while McGary with six others made three caches on the
+coast, the farthest being under the face of the largest of all
+Arctic glaciers, now known by the name of Humboldt. The winter
+proved to be unusually cold, the temperature, from December to March
+inclusive, averaging fifty-four degrees below the freezing-point of
+water. Most fortunately the men remained in health, but Kane grieved
+over the loss of his dogs, only a dozen surviving out of the
+original eighty.
+
+In this contingency Kane decided to put his men in the field, and
+after two weeks of excessive cold, the temperature averaging
+seventy-seven degrees below freezing, a party was sent out while the
+mercury was yet frozen. Their orders were to reach Washington Land,
+about one hundred miles distant across the sea-ice. It soon became
+evident to Brooks, the commander of the party, that the journey was
+impossible of execution, and after eight marches, in which less than
+forty miles were traversed, he turned back on March 29, 1854. The
+cold that day was intense, about ninety degrees below freezing, and
+the next morning four men were frozen so badly that they could not
+walk. Only four men were left for work. The distance to the brig was
+thirty miles, while the intervening ice was so rough that they could
+not drag their disabled comrades. Hickey volunteered to remain,
+while Sontag, Ohlsen, and Petersen should go to the brig for help.
+The three men finally reached the Advance, but they were so
+physically exhausted and in such mental condition that they could
+not even indicate in what direction they had left their comrades.
+
+Kane appreciated the gravity of the situation and the necessity of
+prompt measures. A relief party was at once started, which Kane led
+himself, despite his impaired health, physical weakness, and general
+unfitness for such a desperate journey; as always, he spared not
+himself when danger threatened. Ohlsen, being the clearest-headed of
+the sledgemen, was put in a sleeping-bag and dragged on a sledge as
+a guide.
+
+Eighteen hours' travel were without tangible result; Kane fainted
+twice on the snow; his stoutest men were seized with trembling fits,
+and as yet no signs of the missing party. Fortunately Kane had taken
+the Eskimo, Hans Hendrik, whose keen eye discovered the track that
+led to the tent of the frozen men. They were alive, but crippled
+beyond the possibility of marching. The weather remained fine or all
+would have perished, and as it was, Hayes, the surgeon, in his
+report of their condition on reaching the brig, said: "I was
+startled by their ghastly appearance. When I hailed them they met me
+only with a vacant, wild stare. They were to a man delirious." Of
+the eight men only one returned sound; two shortly died, two others
+suffered amputations, and three escaped with temporary disabilities.
+
+Three weeks later, on April 26th, Kane set out on what, to use his
+own words, "was to be the crowning expedition of the campaign, to
+attain the Ultima Thule of the Greenland shore." Impressed with the
+impracticability of a direct journey across the main ice-pack, he
+decided to follow the shore-line, five men dragging a sledge, while
+Kane and Godfrey travelled by dog-team. He had been led by his
+resolute spirit to overestimate the physical strength of his men and
+himself, and the party broke down before it had even approached the
+Humboldt Glacier. Their enthusiastic leader was stricken with
+fainting spells and rigidity of limbs, but Kane would not admit his
+illness to be more than temporary, and bidding the men strap him on
+the sledge, proceeded onward. His diminished physical powers now
+became evident through the freezing of his rigid and swollen limbs.
+Delirious and fainting at the end of the march, he was carried in an
+almost insensible condition to his tent, when his men wisely took
+the matter in their own hands and started back for the brig. Nine
+days later, through forced marches and heroic efforts of his
+sledge-mates, themselves partially disabled, Kane was carried on
+board the Advance fluctuating between life and death. Hardly
+conscious, his mind clouded, and his swollen features barely
+recognizable, his general condition was such that the surgeon
+regarded his ultimate recovery as nearly hopeless.
+
+While Kane's recuperative powers were simply marvellous, yet he did
+not recover sufficiently to make another journey that spring. In
+this extremity he turned to his surgeon, Israel I. Hayes, who
+volunteered to explore the unknown shores of Grinnell Land, which
+lay in sight to the west of Smith Sound. With the seaman Godfrey as
+a companion and a dog-team as the means of transportation, Hayes
+struggled through the almost impassable floes and bergs of the main
+strait and finally attained Cape Hayes, on the western coast, in
+about 79° 45' N. latitude. The return journey to the Advance was
+possible only by abandoning everything that in the slightest degree
+impeded the progress of the exhausted men and famishing dogs.
+
+This success caused Kane to make one more effort to reach the
+hitherto inaccessible Washington Land, and for this purpose he
+placed all his means at the disposal of one of his seamen, William
+Morton. A supporting party accompanied Morton to Humboldt Glacier,
+whence he proceeded with Eskimo Hans Hendrik and a dog-team on the
+advance journey. Their track lay over the sea-ice, about five miles
+from, and parallel with, the face of the glacier. Five days took
+them to the new land to the north, and three days later, June 24,
+1854, Morton reached alone an impassable headland, Cape
+Constitution. From the highest attainable elevation Morton found his
+view completely cut off to the northeast, but between the west and
+north he could see the southeastern half of Kennedy's Channel as far
+north as Mount Ross, 80° 58' N. He says "Not a speck of ice was to
+be seen as far as I could observe; the sea was open, the swell came
+from the northward ... and the surf broke in on the rocks below in
+regular breakers." Morton described accurately the general
+landscape, but he was an incompetent astronomical observer, and his
+estimates of distances were excessive. The farthest point was
+charted nearly a hundred miles north of its true position, while
+Cape Constitution was placed 31 miles too far north by Morton and 52
+geographic miles by Kane, who "corrected" Morton's observations by a
+series of erroneous bearings. Morton's general account of his
+explorations has been confirmed by Hans Hendrik in his Memoir
+written some years since in Eskimo.
+
+In the meantime the Etah Eskimo, natives of Prudhoe land, had
+discovered the brig, and through the interpreter, Hans Hendrik,
+promptly established friendly relations with Kane. It may be said
+that the expedition owed its final safety to these natives; their
+supplies of fresh meat checked scurvy, and later their dog teams
+rendered retreat possible. Slight misunderstandings, not always the
+fault of the natives, naturally occurred, but the Eskimo were
+honest, humane, and willing, and never committed a hostile act.
+
+The summer of 1854 justified the expressed fears of Kane's officers,
+for it passed with the ice yet unbroken in Rensselaer Harbor. It was
+evident in July that the brig would never be freed from the ice, and
+in this critical situation, Kane, taking five men in a whaleboat,
+attempted to reach Beechy Island, several hundred miles to the
+southwest, whence he expected to obtain succor from the English
+searching squadron. The unfavorable condition of the ice in Smith
+Sound caused the failure of this attempt, and, yet worse, encouraged
+the idea of dividing the party; an idea that culminated in the
+well-known "Arctic Boat Journey," as Dr. Hayes termed it. Despite
+Kane's futile experiences in July, the majority of the party
+maintained that a boat journey to Upernavik was both practicable and
+advisable. Confronted by this attitude of the expeditionary force,
+Kane assembled them, set forth the dangers of such an attempt, and
+vehemently urged them to abandon the project, which the lateness of
+the season and the unfavorable ice conditions rendered most
+improbable of success. Finally he granted the privilege of
+unfettered action to such as believed the journey practicable,
+stipulating only that those leaving the vessel should renounce, in
+writing, all claims upon the expedition and should elect a leader.
+Nine elected to go, eight to remain. Kane displayed a magnanimous
+spirit, equipping them most liberally, and assuring them, in
+writing, that the brig should be ever open should disaster overtake
+them. The boat journey was a failure, and Kane bade them welcome
+when, early in December, he learned that the party, some two hundred
+miles distant and in imminent danger of perishing by starvation, was
+desirous of returning to the Advance. Kane promptly sent supplies to
+the suffering men, and, on December 12th, the entire crew was once
+again upon the brig.
+
+The winter of 1854-5 passed wretchedly; the physical condition of
+the party steadily deteriorated; failing fuel necessitated the
+burning of the upper woodwork of the brig; their food was reduced to
+ordinary marine stores, and game failed equally to the hunters of
+the Advance and the persistent efforts of the Etah natives on the
+ice-clad land and in the frozen sea. In addition scurvy attacked the
+crew; Hayes lost a portion of his frozen foot, and hardly a man of
+the crew remained fit for duty. The necessity of abandoning the brig
+and retreating by boat to Upernavik, Danish Greenland, was now
+forced upon Kane's mind. The co-operation of the natives greatly
+facilitated, if it did not alone render possible, the transportation
+of their provisions, boats, and stores to Cape Alexander. Kane says
+the Eskimo "brought daily supplies of birds, assisted in carrying
+boat stores, and invariably exhibited the kindest feelings and
+strictest honesty."
+
+Bidding farewell to the natives at Cape Alexander on June 15, 1855,
+Cape York was passed, the land ice of Melville Bay followed, and the
+northern coast of Danish Greenland reached in forty-seven days. In
+the meantime a relief squadron under command of Lieutenant
+Hartstene, United States Navy, had visited Smith Sound, where the
+natives informed him of Kane's journey southward. Taken on board the
+returning flag-ship at Disco, Kane and his men reached New York,
+October 11, 1855.
+
+Kane had hardly reached home when it became evident that his
+undermined constitution could not longer withstand the inroads of a
+disease which for twenty years had afflicted him. Change of climate
+was tried without avail, and he died at Havana, Cuba, February 16,
+1857, at the early age of thirty-seven.
+
+Between his first and second voyages Kane had become deeply
+interested in Margaretta Fox, one of the well-known spiritualists,
+who later published their correspondence under the title of "The
+Love Life of Dr. Kane." Their relations, it is believed, resulted in
+a secret marriage shortly before Kane's death.
+
+The rare literary skill shown in the account of Kane's expedition
+has charmed millions of readers with its graphic account of the
+labors, hardships, and privations of Kane and his men. It should
+not, however, be considered that this expedition merits attention
+alone from its tales of suffering and bravery, for none other of
+that generation contributed so materially to a correct knowledge of
+the Arctic regions. In ethnology it gave the first full account of
+the Etah Eskimo, the northernmost inhabitants of the world; in
+natural history its data as to the flora and fauna of the isolated
+and ice-surrounded extremity of western Greenland were original,
+and have been to this day but scantily supplemented; in physical
+sciences, the magnetic, tidal, and climatic observations remained
+for twenty years the most important series pertaining to the Arctic
+regions. Kane's voyage not only extended geographically Inglefield's
+discoveries a hundred miles to the northward, but it also opened up
+a practical and safe route for Arctic exploration, which has been
+more fruitful of successful results than any other.
+
+Kane was a man of generous impulses, enthusiastic ideals, and kindly
+heart. His chivalric nature, indomitable will, and great courage
+often impelled him to hazardous enterprises; but he stands out in
+this modern age as an unselfish character, willing to brave
+hardships and risk his own life on a vague possibility of rescuing
+Franklin and his companions.
+
+[Signature: A. W. Greely.]
+
+
+
+
+FERDINAND DE LESSEPS[16]
+
+         [Footnote 16: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By CLARENCE COOK
+
+(1805-1894)
+
+[Illustration: Ferdinand de Lesseps.]
+
+
+If, as Dante sings: "There is no greater grief than in a time of
+misery to remember happier days," there are few persons in our time
+who can testify more feelingly to the truth of the poet's words than
+Ferdinand de Lesseps. For many years he was a bright-shining,
+sympathetic figure among those who lead in the van of our material
+progress; and the accomplishment, by his initiative and energy, of
+the long dream of the Suez Canal, made him the hero, not of his own
+nation alone, but of all the civilized world; honors were heaped
+upon him, and acclamations greeted him on every side. His name
+became a household word.
+
+A few years later, and all is changed. At the advanced age of
+eighty-eight, Ferdinand de Lesseps is in deep disgrace. Charged with
+the chief responsibility for the ruin brought about by the failure
+of another of his great enterprises--the Panama Canal--he has been
+condemned by the tribunal to pay a huge fine, and has only been
+saved from the shame of actual imprisonment by the knowledge of his
+judges that, in his feeble state of health, imprisonment would
+speedily be fatal. As at the ceremonies on the occasion of the
+opening of the Suez Canal, De Lesseps was compared to Columbus, the
+opener of a way to the new world, so we may see the close of the
+great discoverer's career reflected in the tragic ending of the
+splendid fortunes of De Lesseps.
+
+Ferdinand de Lesseps was the son of a French gentleman who, fifty
+years since, was in the Consular service of France in Egypt. He was
+born at Versailles in 1805, and after receiving the usual education
+given to youth of his class, he was early inducted into the
+mysteries of diplomatic life, where his father's services and
+influence naturally opened a way for him. In 1833, when
+twenty-eight, he was made consul at Cairo, and remained at that post
+for over ten years, during which time he laid the foundations for
+that knowledge of all matters connected with Egyptian affairs which
+was to prove so valuable to him and to the world a few years later.
+
+In 1842, De Lesseps was transferred from Cairo to Spain, and was
+made consul at Barcelona. Spain was at this time much disturbed by
+factional quarrels and jealousies, partly due to disputed claims to
+the succession to the throne, and partly to the angry rivalries of
+political leaders, each eager to save the country by his particular
+nostrum. In the dynastic struggle, Queen Christina, made regent
+after the death of her husband, Ferdinand VII., had been exiled to
+France, and General Espartero, who at first had stood for her cause,
+now ruled as regent in her place. In 1843, the year after the
+arrival of De Lesseps, the city of Barcelona, which in common with
+many other places had refused to support Espartero, openly revolted,
+and was besieged and bombarded by his forces; and in the course of
+the siege, which brought great misery upon the inhabitants, De
+Lesseps did so many humane and generous acts at great personal risk,
+that he was rewarded by honors from the governments of several
+nations whose subjects had been protected by him in his official
+capacity.
+
+It was natural that after this proof of his abilities, De Lesseps
+should be advanced to a still higher position, and in the spring of
+1848 he was made minister to Madrid. This place he held, however,
+only until February, 1849, for in May of that year he was sent to
+Rome to patch up a peace between the popular party and the French
+army of occupation. This proved an unfortunate venture. De Lesseps
+was recalled to France in disgrace, in June of the same year, for
+having shown too great a sympathy for the party of Mazzini, which
+aimed to establish a Roman Republic.
+
+It may be conjectured that the disappointment of De Lesseps at this
+abrupt ending of his diplomatic career was not very great. He had
+not been drawn to the profession by natural inclination, but had
+inherited it, so to speak, from his father, as another man might
+inherit the profession of law or medicine, or as the son of a
+mechanic might inherit his father's trade. His ambition and tastes
+both led him in a different direction; he would play a more active,
+a more striking part in the affairs of his time.
+
+During the period of his residence in Egypt, as consul for France,
+he must often have heard the project of a canal across the Isthmus
+of Suez discussed, since the course of events was every year making
+the necessity of the undertaking more evident. As is well known, the
+idea of such a canal was not a new one: Herodotus speaks of a canal
+designed and partly excavated by Pharaoh Necho in the seventh
+century before Christ, to connect the city of Bubastis, in the Delta
+of the Nile, with the Red Sea. As planned, the canal was to be ten
+feet deep with a width sufficient for two triremes to pass abreast,
+and it was expected that the voyage would be accomplished in four
+days. After the lives of 126,000 Egyptian workmen had been
+sacrificed to the hardships of the undertaking, Herodotus says that
+Necho, alarmed at the difficulties and expense, consulted the Oracle
+as to what was best for him to do, and received the answer: "Thou
+art working for barbarians." The Egyptians, like the Greeks,
+considered all foreigners as barbarians, and the answer simply
+reflected the sentiment of the people, or of their leaders, that
+this vast expenditure of labor, time, and money would prove to be,
+after all, as much for the benefit of foreigners as for themselves.
+The Oracle gave a voice to national and political prejudices, such
+as even in our own time are continually evoked to block the wheels
+of great enterprises. Necho, we are told, heeded the warning of the
+Oracle and abandoned the enterprise, but about one hundred years
+later, in the time of Darius Hystaspes, work on the canal was
+resumed and the undertaking was completed. From time to time we find
+mention made of the canal by later authors, but about the end of the
+eighth century of our era it was finally abandoned and left to be
+blocked up by the sand.
+
+The project was revived by Napoleon I. at the time of his Egyptian
+expedition; but, on the report of his engineer, M. Lepère, now known
+to be mistaken, that the Red Sea level was thirty feet higher than
+that of the Mediterranean, nothing further was done; nor was it
+until so late as 1847 that it was again taken up and an attempt made
+to interest the maritime powers of Europe in the scheme; but nothing
+serious was accomplished.
+
+In truth, the idea of a canal uniting the two seas, had up to this
+time been largely sentimental, if we may so express it; rather
+connected with vast schemes of conquest than founded on the vital
+needs of commercial development and the material good of the people.
+The commerce of the Mediterranean countries with India and the
+remoter East had not in those earlier times reached a point where
+such a costly undertaking as the Suez Canal could prove
+remunerative; what trade there was could be sufficiently and more
+cheaply accommodated by the Overland machinery of caravans, while
+France, Spain, and England still found the route by the Cape to
+answer all their purposes. In fact it was more than doubtful whether
+sailing-vessels, by means of which trade was then chiefly carried
+on, or even steamers of the build then employed, could use the canal
+to profit. It was believed that the advantages promised by a shorter
+route would be counterbalanced by the delays and dangers reckoned
+inseparable from the navigation of so narrow a water-way.
+
+These objections, really of a serious nature, made it difficult to
+win over the business world to a practical interest in the scheme.
+De Lesseps had been from the start the chief mover in the
+enterprise, to which he had given many years of his time, and he was
+not a man to be discouraged by repeated failures to bring others to
+his own way of thinking. His long experience, besides, in the ways
+of diplomacy had prepared him for delays and obstructions; but the
+time came, at last, when his enthusiasm, his confidence in himself,
+and his skill in dealing with men were to bring about the
+realization of his hopes.
+
+Five years, from 1849 to 1854, had been occupied by De Lesseps in
+negotiations with governments and bankers, but it was not until 1854
+that the event occurred which insured the success of his great
+undertaking. In that year, Mahomet Saïd Pasha became Viceroy of
+Egypt, and no sooner was he seated than he sent for De Lesseps to
+consult with him as to the possibility of carrying out the project
+of the canal. In November of the same year, a commission was signed
+at Cairo by the Viceroy charging De Lesseps with the formation of a
+company to be named the United Suez Canal Company, with a capital of
+two hundred million francs, afterward raised to three hundred
+million. From this time the affairs of the canal went on with
+comparative smoothness, and by 1858 the money necessary for the work
+had been pledged; one-half the loan was placed on the continent,
+chiefly in Paris, the other half was taken by the Viceroy.
+
+Actual work on the canal was begun in 1858 and such rapid progress was
+made that it was completed in the autumn of 1869, and opened to the
+commerce of the world with magnificent ceremonies, lasting for several
+days. Religious ceremonies, in which priests of the Catholic Church,
+the Greek Church, and the Moslem faith united, were followed by a
+naval parade representing the European powers and the United States,
+and the whole concluded with a brilliant series of fêtes and
+entertainments at Cairo. As the originator of the canal, De Lesseps,
+was a Frenchman, and as France had been the chief promoter of the
+enterprise, the place of honor at these ceremonies was naturally given
+to the Empress Eugénie, who went to Cairo as the representative of the
+French nation; while to De Lesseps, as naturally, was given the next
+place, a position which he filled with equal dignity and modesty,
+winning "golden opinions from all sorts of people."
+
+The Suez Canal, though a vast and important undertaking, presented
+almost no engineering difficulties to be overcome. At Port Saïd, the
+Mediterranean entrance to the canal, two great piers, to serve as
+breakwaters, were built of artificial stone, projecting into the
+sea; the western, a distance of 6,940 feet, the eastern 6,020 feet,
+and enclosing an area of 450 acres; thus providing a safe and
+commodious harbor. At Suez, the Red Sea terminus of the canal, a
+less formidable defense was needed; but the necessary docks and
+buildings called for a considerable outlay.
+
+From Port Saïd to Suez the land is almost a dead level; the few
+sand-dunes that break the monotonous uniformity of the isthmus
+nowhere reach a greater height than fifty or sixty feet. Along the
+middle line of the isthmus there was a series of depressions; some
+shallow, and others, the bottoms of which were lower than the level
+of the sea. Although these depressions were at all times dry, yet
+they were called "lakes," and as such figure on the maps, where we
+read the names "Lake Timsah," "The Bitter Lakes" and others. They
+were found to be thickly incrusted with salt on the bottom and
+sides, indicating that at one time they had been filled with
+sea-water; it is indeed must probable that the whole isthmus was at
+a very remote period entirely submerged. In the construction of the
+canal these depressions were made to play a very important part. The
+line of the canal was carried directly through them; the shallower
+were brought to a sufficient depth by dredging; the deeper were
+simply filled with water and required nothing more for safe
+navigation than an indication of the channel by buoys. Thus, in the
+whole length of the canal, reckoned at 88 geographical miles, there
+are 66 miles of actual digging; 14 miles of dredging through the
+lakes; and 8 miles, where neither digging nor dredging was required.
+
+Water began to flow from the Mediterranean into the canal in
+February, 1869, and from the Red Sea in July of the same year; and
+by October, the lakes, and the canal in its whole length, were
+filled with water navigable by vessels of the highest class. The
+water-way thus obtained has a width at the surface varying from 197
+feet at deep cuttings, to 225 feet at lower ground. The sides slope
+to a width at the bottom of 72 feet, and an average depth of 26 feet
+is secured along the whole course. As the water is at one level from
+sea to sea, the canal is without obstruction of any kind. No locks,
+dams, or water-gates are required, and vessels enter the canal from
+either end and pursue their journey without interruption or
+detention.
+
+So great, however, was the eagerness of trade to take advantage of
+the new route, that the volume of traffic increased within a very
+short time after the opening of the canal to such an extent as to
+cause serious delays in the transit, and a number of schemes were
+brought forward for building other canals by which the two seas
+might be united. In the end, all these plans were abandoned, and it
+was decided to widen the canal sufficiently to enable it to meet the
+increased demand upon its carrying capacity. It may not be without
+interest to note the growth of traffic in the canal by a few
+figures. From 486 ships which passed through in 1870, the number
+rose to 3,100 in 1886; while the receipts increased from $1,031,875
+in 1870, to $11,541,090 in 1886. The canal, when completed, was
+found to have cost twenty million pounds sterling, a sum far in
+advance of the original estimate, but made necessary by the addition
+of several important items of expenditure that were not foreseen.
+One of these was the substitution of paid labor for the forced labor
+promised by the Pasha, but which was made impossible by public
+clamor. The Egyptian ruler discovered that he was not living in the
+times of the pyramid-building Pharaohs, when men were made
+beasts-of-burden. Another item not provided for was the necessity of
+supplying the 30,000 workmen employed on the canal with fresh water.
+For this purpose, a branch canal had to be dug, by which water could
+be brought from the Nile.
+
+[Illustration: Cutting the Canal at Panama.]
+
+The enterprise thus brought to a happy ending, has already proved of
+great service to the world. It must be looked upon not merely as a
+benefit to commerce, but as one of the many powerful agents now
+at work binding the nations closer together. It is indissolubly
+connected with the name of De Lesseps, and had he been contented
+with the fortune and the reputation gained by his work in forwarding
+the canal, few names would have shone brighter in the list of those
+who have helped on man's material well-being. But in an evil hour he
+was persuaded to lend his support to the Panama Canal scheme, and
+along with the ruined fortunes and ruined reputations sunk in that
+abyss, the name and fortune of De Lesseps and his family have
+suffered irretrievable blight.
+
+The Panama Canal was not first proposed in our day; the scheme is as
+old as the discovery of the isthmus. "The early navigators," says J.
+C. Rodrigues, "could not help noticing how near to each other were
+the two oceans, and how comparatively easy would be (they thought)
+the cutting of a canal through that narrow strip of land between
+them. The celebrated Portuguese navigator Antonio Galväo, as early
+as 1550, wrote an essay on the subject wherein he suggested four
+different lines, one of which was through the Lake of Nicaragua, and
+another by the Isthmus of Panama." England, in 1779, was the first
+to make an attempt to control the river and lake communications, but
+her forces sent under Nelson to begin the work were driven away by
+the terrible fever that has thus far been the best defence of the
+isthmus from attack. Various schemes were entertained by other
+nations, but, although the United States kept a jealous eye upon its
+own interests in the enterprise, it was not until the discovery of
+gold in California that it saw a vital reason for insisting upon its
+paramount claims, and the outbreak of the Civil War, with its
+threats of European intervention, made an easier communication with
+the rising States of the Pacific Coast seem an absolute necessity.
+But we moved slowly and with vacillating steps. We were divided in
+opinion as to the best route to take, as to the sort of canal that
+was desirable, as to the advisability of building any canal. When
+the war was over, the rapid increase of railroad communication with
+the Pacific Coast made public opinion still more indifferent to the
+enterprise. Meanwhile the French had started with great energy a
+scheme for a canal at Panama, and De Lesseps had been induced to
+lend his name to the scheme, and to take an active part in carrying
+it out. For this purpose he visited the United States and used his
+best diplomatic arts to induce our Government to unite with him in
+his plans. But he could do nothing on this side the water and
+returned to France to fight the battle alone. There the interest in
+the scheme, artificially excited by speculators and still further
+aided by the efforts of De Lesseps and his friends, increased to
+such an extent as to swamp all considerations of prudence. The name
+of De Lesseps, consecrated by the brilliant success of Suez, proved
+to be a powerful charm. Thousands and tens of thousands of people in
+the cities and in the country put the hard-earned savings of years
+into the venture; senators, deputies, men of high social rank in
+public life, shamelessly sold their votes and their voices to secure
+the moral aid and the money of the state to aid their gambling
+enterprise, and the newspaper press of Paris, at all times venal,
+betrayed for bribes the trust that was reposed in it.
+
+Such a state of things could not last forever. The end, long
+prophesied, came at last; the exposure was complete, and the whole
+stupendous scheme of fraud was unmasked. Something might have been
+saved from the wreck had the canal itself been a real thing so far
+as it had gone, a practical enterprise, sure in time to pay its
+investors and serve the public. But it was found that everything
+connected with the construction of the canal had been grossly
+misrepresented; the estimates of expense; the reports of the
+engineering difficulties to be overcome; the dangers from the
+climate; the bills of mortality; everything, in short, was enveloped
+in a cloud of lies. So great was the shock to public confidence that
+followed this exposure, that for a time the Republic itself seemed
+in danger of overthrow. The eyes of the world were fixed upon De
+Lesseps and his son Charles as the chief authors of the mischief,
+and when the crisis was passed, and the smoke of the upheaval had
+passed away, the Panama Canal was seen to be a ruined enterprise,
+and buried deep underneath it was the once-honored name of Ferdinand
+De Lesseps.
+
+[Signature: Clarence Cook.]
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL JOHN C. FRÉMONT[17]
+
+         [Footnote 17: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By JANE MARSH PARKER
+
+(1813-1890)
+
+
+In these days of rapid transit between New York and San Francisco,
+of luxurious travel across desert and mountain, the story of John
+Charles Frémont, the Pathfinder of the great West, is of peculiar
+interest, a striking illustration that the history of the world is
+in the biography of its leaders, in the pathfinders of the
+unexplored.
+
+The stormy tide of the French Revolution sent the father of John
+Charles Frémont to the New World about the time, presumably, when
+Napoleon Bonaparte was in the height of power. This M. Frémont came
+of a good family living near Lyons, France. A British man-of-war
+made prize of the ship in which he sailed for San Domingo, and he
+was carried prisoner to one of the British West India islands, his
+captivity lasting several years. Upon gaining his liberty he stopped
+at Norfolk, Va., to refill an empty purse as a teacher of French,
+and there met Anne Beverly Whiting, a leading belle of an old
+Virginia family, who became his wife. One of the illustrious
+connections of the Whitings was that with the family of George
+Washington. M. Frémont's marked fondness for travel and adventure
+was shared by his wife. They took long journeys through the wild
+southern country, stopping at Indian villages, often sleeping by
+camp-fires. On one of these expeditions, when making a halt at
+Savannah, Ga., John Charles, their first child, was born, January
+21, 1813. M. Frémont died a few years after.
+
+The boyhood of John Charles was spent in Charleston. It is well to
+remember, in a study of his life, his French blood and early
+southern environment. His first choice of a profession was the law.
+At the age of fourteen he became a student in the office of John W.
+Mitchell, who placed him under a private tutor, Dr. Roberton, who
+understood the lad thoroughly and developed his character in the
+right direction. Dr. Roberton seems to have first discovered what
+was made plain in Frémont's after-life--the makings of a poet, and
+the foresight of a prophet. Translating the story of the battle of
+Marathon in the Greek class, young Frémont catches the spirit with
+which it was told by Herodotus, and writes verses in protest of
+tyranny which are published in one of the Charleston papers. "In one
+year," wrote his tutor, "he had read four books of Cæsar; Cornelius
+Nepos; Sallust; six books of Virgil; nearly all of Horace, and two
+books of Livy. In Greek--all of Græca Minora, about half of the
+first volume of Græca Majora, and four books of the Iliad." At
+fifteen he enters the junior class of Charleston College. At sixteen
+he is confirmed in the Episcopal Church, entertaining at that time
+thoughts of entering the ministry. His steady progress is
+interrupted by his first love affair; his absorbing passion so gets
+the better of his common sense, that he neglects his books and
+classes and is expelled from college. We next find him teaching
+higher mathematics, acting as private tutor, and devoting his
+evenings to the charge of the _Apprentice's Library_, a school in
+Charleston. At twenty years of age he received the appointment of
+teacher of mathematics, and his long connection with the United
+States Army had its beginning; his post the sloop of war Natchez. He
+was to go on a cruise of two years and more along the coast of South
+America. Here was a chance for him to unfit himself for further
+advancement, but he improved his time upon the cruise to the utmost,
+and his diligent scholarship won for him the double degree of
+bachelor and master of arts from the college from which he had been
+expelled. His application for a mathematical professorship in the
+Navy resulted in his passing the severe examination, and in an
+appointment to the frigate Independence. He declined the office,
+however, having decided to become an engineer, to join Captain
+Williams's survey of the mountain passes between South Carolina and
+Tennessee. There was talk of a railroad between Charleston and
+Cincinnati in those days.
+
+That was Frémont's first experience in exploring expeditions. The
+corps lived chiefly in camp. The survey was in wild mountainous
+regions of the unexplored South, among Indians sullen against the
+Government. Frémont liked this kind of a life. He enlisted under
+Captain Williams the second time in 1837, as assistant engineer,
+going with him upon a military reconnoissance of the Cherokee
+country in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. A war cloud was
+rising; the peril of the expedition was its charm to Frémont. "St.
+Louis was then on the border of an immense and almost unexplored
+Indian country. The caravans of merchandise going through it to
+Santa Fé, ran all the risks you can read of among Bedouins in the
+desert; the hunters and trappers, as well as the merchants, started
+off into the unknown with only one certainty, that danger was there;
+and when they came back--if they ever did--it was as from
+underworld."[18]
+
+         [Footnote 18: Souvenirs of my Time. Jessie Benton Frémont.]
+
+About this time a distinguished French geographer, M. Nicollet, was
+sent to this country by France to explore the sources of the
+Mississippi, "in the interests of geography." The United States were
+also interested in the geography of the almost unknown Northwest. M.
+Nicollet was appointed to make explorations for the United States,
+and Frémont was honored with the position of principal assistant. It
+was high time that something should be done in the interests of a
+geography made up largely from travellers' tales. That there was a
+great river, the Buena Ventura, running from the base of the Rocky
+Mountains to the Bay of San Francisco, nobody doubted, for there it
+was upon the map. The exploration of M. Nicollet, assisted by
+Frémont, awakened great interest. They were absent two years; their
+field, the territory between the Missouri and the upper rivers, as
+far north as the British line. Their report was awaited with
+impatience. Frémont came home to find that he had been appointed
+second lieutenant of the United States Topographical Engineers. As a
+scientific explorer his fame was established. The year following his
+return he spent in Washington with M. Nicollet, preparing his report
+for publication. Among those most deeply interested was Senator
+Benton, of Missouri, "Tom Benton," as he was popularly called, and
+"Old Bullion." Benton's hobby was the opening of a road for
+immigrants to the Pacific coast, as a necessary step to the
+acquisition of the territory held by Mexico--the California of
+to-day. Senator Benton's interest in the report of the young
+engineer, then about twenty-seven years of age, was surpassed by the
+young engineer's interest in the senator's daughter, Jessie, then
+only fifteen, an interest which ended in a betrothal contrary to the
+wishes of older heads, owing to Miss Benton's youth and young
+Frémont's connection with the army. The young engineer received an
+unexpected and unwelcome order, sending him to the wild frontier of
+Iowa at once, where the Sacs and Foxes, it was thought by Senator
+Benton (who had a hand in his exile), might be made to help postpone
+the marriage, at least. But banishment and red-skins were of no
+avail in breaking the engagement.
+
+Frémont performed his duty to the letter, returned to Washington,
+and married Miss Benton, October 19, 1841--a "runaway match" which
+happily brought life-long happiness to both parties--Mrs. Frémont
+becoming the connecting link, to use her own words, between her
+father's "fixed idea of the importance of the speedy acquisition of
+the Pacific coast, and its actualization through the man best fitted
+to be the pioneer of the undertaking."
+
+Less than a year after his marriage, in the summer of 1842, Frémont
+was sent by the War Department on the _first_ of the _five_
+expeditions which gave him the name of Pathfinder.
+
+The Mexican War was ripening fast. England had at that time
+financial claims upon Mexico, and Mexico was bankrupt.
+
+How to get California was a serious question, reminding United
+States diplomatists of the old Quaker's advice to his son--"Get
+money, Joseph, get money. Get it honestly if you can--_but get it_."
+Acquisition of California by settlement was vigorously encouraged.
+The best routes across the mountains must be discovered and
+surveyed. Partial explorations of routes to Oregon and California
+had been made. Emigrants had crossed the Rockies and were settled in
+the Sacramento Valley. But the geography of the Great Basin was
+inaccessible to science; the best and safest routes were only
+guessed at. Emigration was checked by rumors of perils, alas! too
+true. Frémont's order to go to the frontier beyond the Mississippi,
+was changed at his request for something more definite--the
+exploration of _the South Pass_ of the Rocky Mountains.
+
+August 8, 1842, he reached the South Pass, and then the unexplored
+was before him--untrodden ground. Kit Carson was his guide;
+twenty-eight men made up his party--Canadian voyageurs, picked men,
+well mounted and armed--only eight of the expedition driving wagons.
+Randolph Benton, a lad of twelve, Frémont's brother-in-law, was one
+of the number. The great event of this expedition, so full of
+thrilling adventure, was the first ascent of that highest peak of
+the Wind River Mountains, now called Frémont's Peak, 13,570 feet in
+height. "We mounted the barometer in the snow of the summit,"
+Frémont wrote, "and fixing a ramrod in the crevice, unfurled the
+national flag where never flag waved before.... While we were
+sitting on the rock a solitary bumble-bee came winging its flight
+from the eastern valley, and lit on the knee of one of the men."
+They run a cañon in the Platte, singing a Canadian boat-song for all
+the peril.... Their boat is whirled over, food, ammunition, and
+valuable records lost. Climbing up and out of the cañon, they admire
+the scenery in spite of their forlornity ... cacti and bare feet,
+hunger and thirst ... but astronomical and barometrical observations
+and drawings are made, botanical specimens collected, and a mass of
+information, making the report of this expedition[19] what has been
+called the most enduring monument of Frémont's fame. The report was
+hailed in England as well as the United States, and was followed by
+an increase of the wagon-trains across the mountains via the South
+Pass.
+
+         [Footnote 19: Frémont's Oregon and California. (1849.)]
+
+The first expedition was absent some six months. Frémont's Peak
+marks the western point of that journey.
+
+The next order from the Government sent Frémont, in the spring of
+1843, to begin exploring where he had left off in 1842; to connect
+his survey with that of Commodore Wilkes on the Pacific coast. Kit
+Carson was again his guide; many of the previous expedition
+enlisted, 32 men in all. Across the forks of the Kansas the route
+lay west of Fort Laramie, through the Medicine Butte Pass and the
+South Pass to the northern end of Great Salt Lake. Frémont's report
+of this region led the Mormons to settle at Salt Lake afterward,
+believing they would be in Mexican territory. The record of this
+expedition, like the preceding one, is a story of fearful suffering
+and heroic endurance. It is given in detail in Frémont's "Memoirs,"
+and Benton's "Thirty Years in the Senate." Deep snows on the
+mountains, no sign of the Buena Ventura River, Indians refusing to
+guide such a foolhardy venture; "skeleton men leading skeleton
+horses;" the descent into the Sacramento Valley at last, and the
+arrival at Fort Vancouver, November 1843, gives but a glimpse of the
+heroism of this second expedition. The suffering endured in reaching
+the coast was as nothing to that of the return through the great
+valley between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada, looking for the
+river they were the first to prove did not exist at all. From San
+Francisco back to Salt Lake, three thousand five hundred miles in
+eight months, not once out of the sight of snow. Geography had
+gained an important fact--the Colorado was the only river flowing
+from the Rocky Mountains on that part of the continent. For eight
+months not a word had been heard from the party, at the East, and
+then Frémont came home "thin as a shadow," and Mrs. Frémont could
+tell him that she might have prevented his going at all had she
+chosen, for an order from Washington, countermanding the expedition,
+had been received by her addressed to her husband, soon after his
+departure from St. Louis. The expedition was not too far away when
+the despatch came for her to get it to him, but she decided to
+withhold it. Because he had taken a mountain howitzer in his outfit
+he was ordered to stay at home. What a scientific expedition could
+want of a howitzer was not plain to the authorities, who seemed to
+think that hostile Indians knew at sight the difference between a
+military and a scientific party and would respect it. Mrs. Frémont
+tells the story in _The Century_ for March, 1891, how she not only
+did not send on the despatch, but a messenger instead, bidding
+Frémont "Go on at once without asking why," so fearful was she a
+duplicate order might defeat his going at all.
+
+General Scott was Commander in Chief of our Army in 1845. At his
+instance Lieutenant Frémont was made captain in the United States
+Army, and in the fall of that year was sent by the Government on
+another expedition ... this time to find the best road to the
+Pacific coast. Trouble with Mexico was growing fast. Our
+southwestern territory needed looking after; the northwestern of
+Mexico as well. Frémont was to follow the Arkansas River to its
+source in the Rocky Mountains, explore the Great Basin, the
+Cascades, and the Sierra Nevada, and define a route in a southern
+latitude for emigrants. Kit Carson was among the sixty men of this
+party, and several veterans of the two former expeditions. They
+struck out for the Sierra by the way of the Humboldt River. The war
+with Mexico broke out soon after their departure.
+
+It was another story of fearful hardship--the Sacramento Valley was
+reached at last, and Frémont hastened to Monterey to get permission
+from the Mexican authorities to make a scientific exploration of the
+region. His request was granted, and permission given to replenish
+his exhausted supplies. Why the Government revoked this permission
+almost as soon as granted, ordering him and his men to quit the
+country at once or they would be sent as prisoners to Mexico, is a
+source of much controversy between historians of that day and this.
+Frémont could not retreat into the desert with his scanty outfit. A
+rude fort was built at once on Hawk's Peak, some thirty miles from
+Monterey, and the Stars and Stripes flung out, Frémont and his men
+ready to take the consequences of such defiance. When they withdrew,
+as they did in a few days, overtures from the Mexicans followed
+them, even a proposition from the Spanish officer that Frémont
+should join with him and declare the country independent of Mexico.
+Frémont moved northward. He had reached Tlamath Lake when overtaken
+by a special messenger from Washington, the bearer of a despatch
+which had been memorized by the messenger to prevent its falling
+into the hands of the Mexicans, and which Frémont interpreted to
+mean that it was the wish of the Cabinet that he should aid in
+taking and holding California, in the event of any occurrence which
+he thought justification for so doing. The English must not
+strengthen their foothold on the coast. Someone must look after the
+interest of the United States; he was on the ground. If a crisis
+came he must act without written authority, promptly and
+discreetly--"Get it honestly if you can--_but get it_." He returned
+at once to California, and found it in a revolutionary state. The
+American settlers had hoisted what was called the Bear Flag, and
+were eager to fight for the overthrow of the Mexican authority in
+California.
+
+It is a long story, that of the conquest of California. Frémont's
+right to be called the Conqueror or the Emancipator is bitterly
+disputed by some, who claim that he attacked the Californians by
+irregular warfare, and so thwarted the conciliatory designs of the
+Government. Be that as it may, by July 5, 1846, the Bear Flag
+insurgents under Frémont had declared their independence of Mexico,
+and Frémont had been appointed Governor of California, and had
+hauled down the Bear Flag and raised the Stars and Stripes. A
+constitution had been drawn up and the territory declared to be in
+the possession of the United States. January, 1847, "the enemy"
+capitulated to Frémont. "The celerity and boldness of his movements
+in the conduct of the affair were only surpassed," says a
+contemporary, "by the moderation and clemency of his policy." "The
+decisive point," wrote George Bancroft, "in the establishment of the
+Union on a firm basis had been gained."
+
+The seizure of California in 1846 has been called, from another
+outlook, "one of the least creditable affairs in the highly
+discreditable Mexican War," and Frémont nothing more than a
+filibuster seeking private ends. California had been made ours,
+nevertheless, and Frémont had secured the prize.
+
+In the meantime the Mexican War had begun, and Commodore Stockton,
+of the U. S. Navy, was hastening to California _by sea_ under orders
+to subjugate the country. General Kearney was marching westward _by
+land_ under like orders. Of course there was a dispute about
+precedence when both were upon the ground, each asserting his right
+to command the other, both issuing orders and insisting upon the
+right to precedence. The difficulty of serving under two masters was
+experienced by Frémont. General Vallejo testified that he received
+in one day, letters from Commodore Stockton, General Kearney, and
+Colonel Frémont, each signing himself "Commander-in-Chief." Frémont
+believed he had sufficient reason for choosing to serve under
+Stockton, which he did. Upon Stockton's return to his squadron and
+Kearney's assignment to full command, Kearney brought charges
+against Frémont for mutiny and fraud, defeating his re-appointment
+as governor of the State besides. Frémont was ordered home, and it
+was said "that, like Columbus, he returned from the discovery and
+conquest of a new world, a prisoner and in disgrace." He went back
+to Washington under arrest. Great honors awaited him, nevertheless,
+his troubles only adding to his laurels. The citizens of Charleston
+gave him a sword, the ladies the gold-mounted belt of the same. He
+demanded immediate trial, which was granted, the court-martial
+lasting three months, his defence filling three sessions. He was
+pronounced guilty of mutiny, disobedience of the lawful command of a
+superior officer, and conduct to the prejudice of good order and
+military discipline--a conviction based, some said, upon technical
+grounds. President Polk remitted the penalty--dismissal from the
+army--but Frémont resigned at once, the President reluctantly
+accepting his resignation.
+
+Frémont was then thirty-four years old. As the leader of three great
+exploring expeditions he had become not only famous, but a popular
+hero. He had done much for science. He had made the most accurate
+map of the region between the one hundred and fourth meridian and
+the Pacific. He had added a large collection of botanical,
+geological, and other specimens to the national museums. He was
+eager to resume explorations of routes to the Pacific, having
+decided to settle his family in California--upon the Mariposa
+estate, in the Sacramento Valley, which he had bought in 1847,
+before the discovery of gold, seventy square miles, for $3,000, "the
+only Mexican grant that covered any part of the gold regions."
+
+Frémont's claims against the Government for expenses incurred in the
+conquest and defence of California, amounted to some $700,000, which
+was paid to him. Among those advocating the payment were Senators
+Benton, and Dix of New York. Twenty thousand copies of Frémont's map
+of Oregon and California were ordered by the Senate.
+
+It was by no means in the rôle of a defeated man that he started out
+upon his fourth expedition, in the fall of 1848--when the gold fever
+was at its height--a venture of his own and Colonel Benton's; its
+object, a route to the Pacific by way of the Rio Grande. Thirty-two
+men were enlisted, picked men as before. It was a superb and costly
+outfit, no less than one hundred and twenty mules. Lacking Kit
+Carson for a guide, they were lost in crossing the Rocky Mountains,
+every mule and horse and one-third of the men perishing from cold or
+starvation. At last, as he wrote home, "the mules, huddled together
+in the deep snow, froze stiff as they stood and fell over like
+blocks." The freezing men recrossed the summit in retreat, some of
+them driven to cannibalism. Wading through the snow to the waist,
+the remnant reached the home of Kit Carson at Taos, N. M., where
+Frémont reorganized the expedition, reaching the Sacramento in the
+spring of 1849.
+
+Litigation concerning his title to the Mariposa estate did not
+prevent Frémont from developing its mineral and agricultural
+resources. He engaged some twenty-eight Spaniards to work its gold
+mines upon shares. His prospects of boundless wealth were most
+flattering. The Pathfinder was now a millionaire, and in 1855 his
+title to Mariposa was established by the Supreme Court. Following
+his appointment in 1849 to run the boundary line between the United
+States and Mexico, the political party of the Territory seeking its
+admission as a free State, elected him to the United States Senate.
+Many honors were bestowed upon him at this time--the medal of the
+Royal Geographical Society of London, the Founders medal from the
+King of Prussia, an honorary membership of the Geographical Society
+of Berlin, etc.
+
+In the California State election of 1851, Frémont stood with the
+Anti-Slavery party, opposed to the extension of slavery in free
+territories. He was defeated, and went to Europe with his family in
+1852, where he was fêted by royalty generally. Mrs. Frémont, in her
+"Souvenirs of My Time," has given charming glimpses of this part of
+their life. Hearing that Congress had made appropriation for further
+surveys of great Western routes, Frémont hastened home in 1853, to
+explore by a fifth expedition, what he believed to be the most
+central and practicable route. This was his second private venture.
+He would follow the path he had lost when the guide led him astray
+on his fourth expedition. He would cross the Rockies at Cochetopa
+Pass, and that in winter.
+
+He made the passage, but it was at the cost of frightful suffering;
+fifty days on frozen horse-flesh, days without even that;
+forty-eight hours without a morsel of food; the entire party
+barefooted in the snow; Frémont, in the hour of extreme peril on the
+storm-swept mountain-side, making his men take oath that, come what
+might, nothing should tempt them to cannibalism. Benton tells us how
+Frémont went straight to the spot where the guide had gone astray in
+1848, and found safe and easy passes all the way to California, upon
+the straight line of 38° and 39°. Great railroads of to-day follow
+the line it took those starving and half-frozen men fifty days to
+pass in that winter of 1854. For three months nothing was heard from
+the party. Frémont's arrival in San Francisco was an ovation.
+"Europe lies between Asia and America," we read in his report;
+"build the road, and America lies between Europe and Asia.... The
+iron track to San Francisco will be the thoroughfare of the world."
+
+The issues at stake in the presidential campaign of 1856 make that
+campaign the most important of any in the history of our country.
+"The question now to be decided," said Seward, "is whether a
+slave-holding class shall govern America or not." The nomination of
+John Charles Frémont as the candidate of the Republican party was
+hailed with enthusiasm at the North. The Civil War was impending.
+The lines between the defenders of slavery and its opponents were
+sharply defined. Frémont was the first nominee of the Republican
+party. The romance and adventure of his career, his upright life,
+the hero-worship of the Pacific coast, the antagonism of the South,
+gave the canvass a vitalizing force that his defeat by James
+Buchanan did not lessen, but simply changed into a new phase of
+strength. Frémont's popular vote was 1,341,000 against 1,838,000 for
+Buchanan and 874,000 for Fillmore (Know-Nothing). Frémont received
+114 electoral votes, and Buchanan 174.
+
+When the Civil War broke out, in 1861, Frémont was in Europe. He
+offered his services to the Government at once, and was appointed
+one of the four major-generals of the regular army, and given his
+choice of a command at the East or the West. He chose the West. "Who
+holds the Mississippi will hold the country by the heart," he said.
+His head-quarters were at St. Louis, where secession was rampant.
+"You must use your own judgment," wrote President Lincoln, "and do
+the best you can. I doubt if the States will ever come back."
+Frémont's policy differed from Lincoln's essentially; it lacked that
+patient, conciliatory spirit with the South which made it hard for
+many at the North to approve of the compromising policy of the Chief
+Executive, seeking to hold the neutral States from seceding.
+Frémont's hatred of the rebellion led him to deal with it just as he
+would have done with a mutiny on a perilous expedition. He
+proclaimed martial law. Rebels were to pay some penalty for
+rebellion--rebel newspapers were silenced--and what was the notable
+feature of Frémont's administration--the slaves of those in arms
+against the Government were declared emancipated; his emancipation
+proclamation antedating Lincoln's of September 22, 1862, by a little
+more than a year. But Frémont's policy was censured rather than
+approved by the country at large. Petty intrigues of officers in
+close relation with the Cabinet did much to defeat his plans. His
+fleet of gunboats was called a useless extravagance--his staff "the
+California Gang." His emancipation proclamation was pronounced
+premature and unwise by Lincoln, and revoked. Frémont again was the
+cause of an intense public partisanship, "Frémont's career at the
+West was brief," says "Patton's Concise History of the United
+States," "only one hundred days; but, being a man of military
+instincts and training, he showed in that time a sagacity which was
+not allowed fair practical development. In that brief time he was
+the first to suggest and inaugurate the following practices, then
+widely decried, but without which the war would not have been
+successfully concluded: the free use of cavalry (strongly opposed by
+General Scott and others); exchange of prisoners with the enemy;
+fortification of large cities, to allow armies to take the field;
+building of river gunboats for the interior operations at the West;
+and the emancipation of the slaves. In short, he contributed more
+than is generally credited to him." "To get rid of Frémont," says
+Major-General Sigel, "the good prospects and honor of the army were
+sacrificed to the jealousy of successful rivals." Frémont was
+relieved of his command in 1861, and shortly after appointed
+commander of the Mountain District of Virginia, Kentucky, and
+Tennessee, where he did most honorable service, Stonewall Jackson
+retreating before him after eight days' sharp skirmishing, ending in
+the battle of Cross Keys.
+
+Upon the appointment of General Pope as Commander of the Army of
+Virginia, making him Frémont's superior officer, Frémont asked to be
+relieved; his request was granted.
+
+A minority of the Republican party, the radical wing, opposed to the
+renomination of Lincoln in 1864, nominated Frémont as their
+candidate. He accepted, but finally withdrew. "Not to aid in the
+triumph of Lincoln," he said, "but to do my part toward preventing
+the election of the Democratic candidate." One of the Republican
+candidates would have to retire to save the party. Here is a subject
+for debating clubs: Was the interest of the country best served by
+Frémont's withdrawal from the canvass of 1864?
+
+After 1864 Frémont took little part in public life. He became
+absorbed in his great trans-continental railroad scheme of a line
+from Norfolk to San Diego and San Francisco, in which he ultimately
+lost his large fortune. French agents, in disposing of his bonds in
+France, made false representations. He was prosecuted by the French
+Government in 1873, and sentenced by default to fine and
+imprisonment, although no judgment was given on the merits of the
+case.
+
+The sale of his Mariposa grant brought him several millions, which
+he invested in railroads soon after the war, buying the properties
+that now constitute a large part of the Texas Pacific and other
+roads belonging to the Atchison and Santa Fé. In the great
+consolidation entailed by the foreign litigation, his confidence was
+abused, and he met with heavy and irreparable loss.
+
+From 1878 to 1881 he was Governor of Arizona. His "Memoirs" appeared
+in 1886. The closing years of his life were spent in comparative
+retirement.
+
+Not long before his sudden death in New York City July 14, 1890, at
+the age of seventy-seven years, he had been placed on the retired
+list of the United States Army with the rank of Major-General. When
+he passed away the Pathfinder of Africa was filling the public
+ear--the wedding of Stanley in Westminster Abbey was the theme of
+the hour.
+
+He was buried in Kensico Cemetery, Piermont-on-the-Hudson, about
+thirty miles from New York City, near the country home of his
+prosperous days. His widow, Jessie Benton Frémont, is at this
+writing (1893), a resident of Los Angeles, Cal. Three children
+survive their father, an unmarried daughter, Elizabeth McDowell
+Benton, Lieutenant Frank Preston Frémont, U. S. A.; and Lieutenant
+John Charles Frémont, U. S. N. After his death Mrs. Frémont demanded
+compensation for, or restitution of the property appropriated by the
+United States Government for military purposes in San Francisco
+harbor, in 1863, and for which she has never received a dollar
+(1893). The settlement of this claim in her favor is anticipated by
+the bench generally, long as justice to her has been delayed. At
+present she has a pension from the Government.
+
+Some profess to find it hard reading the character of John Charles
+Frémont, calling it enigmatical and baffling. Not so with those who
+knew him best. "His unwritten history," writes one of these, "gives
+the clew to his life."
+
+That he was a man of indomitable courage none can deny; a man of
+lofty principle and unblemished character. An atmosphere of romance
+makes him the American Chevalier.
+
+He did more than any other man to open the pathways to the Pacific
+coast. The bitter feeling engendered by the California conquest, and
+his policy in the Civil War, is not yet extinct. Partisanship has
+biassed the most of his biographers. The intense feeling underlying
+the presidential campaign of 1856 did not conduce to a fair estimate
+of the man, who has suffered hardly less from the intense admiration
+of his friends than from jealousies of rivals and foes. "I tried to
+do my duty," he would say in his old age, when asked to explain
+knotty points about the conquest.
+
+"All that he ever did for the Government," says one who knew him
+well, "was uniformly repaid with injury." That is the verdict of one
+side of the controversy. The sifting and weighing of a mass of
+conflicting evidence, preceding the final verdict of permanent
+history, is not yet ended in Frémont's case. That the outcome will
+be illumination of his fame rather than obscuration, his unswerving
+defenders do not doubt.
+
+"Though the Pathfinders die, the paths remain open."
+
+[Signature: Jane Marsh Parker.]
+
+
+
+
+DAVID LIVINGSTONE
+
+By Professor W. G. BLAIKIE, LL.D.
+
+(1813-1873)
+
+[Illustration: David Livingstone.]
+
+
+David Livingstone, missionary and traveller, was born at Blantyre,
+in Lanarkshire, March 19, 1813. His parents, who were in humble
+life, were of devout and exemplary character; his father in
+particular being a great reader, especially of travels and
+missionary intelligence, and much interested in the enterprise of
+the nineteenth century. At the age of ten David became a worker in a
+cotton-factory at Blantyre, and continued in that laborious
+occupation for fourteen years. His thirst for knowledge led him to
+read all that he could lay his hands on; he used also to attend a
+night-class, after the long hours of the factory, for the study of
+Latin. The reading of Dick's "Philosophy of a Future State" was not
+only the means of a profound impression on his mind, but kindled the
+desire to devote his life as a missionary to the service of Christ.
+
+Deeply impressed with the advantages of medical training to a
+missionary, he resolved to qualify himself in medicine, as well as
+the other attainments looked for in a missionary. The London
+Missionary Society having accepted the offer of his services, he
+went to London to complete his studies. His first desire was to
+labor in China, but, war having broken out between that country and
+Great Britain, this wish could not be fulfilled. The Rev. Robert
+Moffat's visit at this time to England turned many hearts to
+Africa--Livingstone's among the rest; ultimately he was appointed to
+that field, and, having been ordained on November 20, 1840, he set
+sail for Africa, reaching Lattakoo or Kuruman, Moffat's settlement,
+on July 31, 1841.
+
+For several years Livingstone labored as a missionary in the
+Bechuana country, at Mabotse, Chonuana, and Kolobeng, places that
+were chosen by him just because they were in the heart of
+heathenism. The conversion of Sechélé, chief of the Bakwains, and
+several of his tribe, was a great encouragement. Repulsed by the
+Boers in an effort to plant native missionaries in the Transvaal, he
+directed his steps northward, discovered Lake 'Ngami and found the
+country there traversed by fine rivers and inhabited by a dense
+population. His anxiety to benefit this region led finally to his
+undertaking to explore the whole country westward to the Atlantic at
+St. Paul de Loanda, and eastward to the Indian Ocean at Quilimane.
+
+Livingstone had married at Mabotse, Mary, eldest daughter of the
+Rev. R. Moffat, and now he found it necessary to send her, with
+their children, to England, that he might be free for this vast and
+perilous undertaking. To accomplish it occupied from June 8, 1852,
+when he left Cape Town, to May 26, 1856, when he arrived at
+Quilimane. This journey was accomplished with a mere handful of
+followers, and a mere pittance of stores, amid sicknesses and other
+bodily troubles, perils, and difficulties without number. But a vast
+amount of valuable information was gathered respecting the country
+and its products, its geography and natural history, the native
+tribes, the regions that were favorable to health, and some great
+natural wonders, such as the Zambesi Falls.
+
+Livingstone, however, found that the London Missionary Society were
+not willing that he should be to so large an extent an explorer, and
+some time after returning to Britain he resigned his office as one
+of their missionaries.
+
+At home Livingstone was welcomed with extraordinary enthusiasm,
+receiving the acknowledgments and honors of scientific societies,
+universities, town councils, and other public bodies in every
+quarter of the country. In addition to these tokens of honor, the
+fifteen months spent at home were signalized by three things: the
+writing of his book, "Missionary Travels" (1857), which was received
+with the liveliest interest; his visit to Cambridge, awakening the
+enthusiasm of many of the students, and leading to the formation
+afterward of the "Universities Mission;" and his appointment by Her
+Majesty's Government as chief of an expedition for exploring the
+Zambesi and its tributaries, and the regions adjacent.
+
+On this expedition Livingstone set out on March 10, 1858. While
+successful in many ways, it led to not a little disappointment.
+Livingstone explored the Zambesi, the Shiré, and the Rovuma;
+discovered Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, and came to a decided conclusion
+that Lake Nyassa and its neighborhood was the best field for both
+commercial and missionary operations. His disappointments arose from
+the grievous defects of a steamer sent out to him by Government,
+from the death of comrades and helpers, including his wife and
+Bishop Mackenzie; from the abandonment of the Universities Mission;
+from the opposition of the Portuguese authorities; but mainly from
+the distressing discovery that, encouraged by Portuguese traders,
+the slave-trade was extending in the district, and the slave-traders
+using his very discoveries to facilitate their infamous traffic. At
+length a despatch recalling the expedition was received, July 2,
+1863. Livingstone, at his own cost, had brought out a new steamer,
+but she could not be put on the lake. Depressed though he was, he
+explored the northern banks of Lake Nyassa on foot; then in his own
+vessel, and under his own seamanship, crossed the Indian Ocean to
+Bombay; and after a brief stay there, returned to Britain, reaching
+London on July 23, 1864.
+
+At home Livingstone had two objects--to expose the atrocious deeds
+of the Portuguese slave-traders, and to find means of establishing a
+settlement for missions and commerce somewhere near the head of the
+Rovuma, or wherever a suitable locality could be found. His second
+book, "The Zambesi and its Tributaries" (1865), was designed to
+further these objects. He was again received with every
+demonstration of honor and regard. A proposal was made to him, on
+the part of the Royal Geographical Society, to return to Africa and
+settle a disputed question regarding the water-shed of Central
+Africa and the sources of the Nile. He said he would go only as a
+missionary, but was willing to help to solve the geographical
+problem.
+
+He set out in August, 1865, _via_ Bombay and Zanzibar. On March 19,
+1866, he started from the latter place, first of all trying to find
+a suitable settlement, then striking westward in order to solve the
+geographical problem. Through the ill-behavior of some of his
+attendants a report of his death was circulated, but an expedition,
+headed by Mr. E. D. Young, R. N., ascertained that the report was
+false. Livingstone pressed westward amid innumerable hardships, and
+in 1869 discovered Lakes Meoro and Bangweolo. All the while he was
+doing what he could for the religious enlightenment of the natives.
+Obliged to return for rest to Ujiji, where he found his goods
+squandered, he struck westward again as far as the river Lualaba,
+thinking it might possibly be the Nile, but far from certain that it
+was not, what it proved afterward to be, the Congo. Returning after
+severe illness once more to Ujiji, Livingstone found there, Mr. H.
+M. Stanley, who had been sent to look for him by the proprietor of
+the _New York Herald_. But no consideration would induce him to
+return home till he had made one more effort to solve the
+geographical problem.
+
+He returned to Lake Bangweolo, but fell into wretched health. His
+sufferings always increasing, when he reached Chitambo's village in
+Ilala, he was obliged to give in. On the morning of May 1, 1873, he
+was found by his attendants on his knees, dead. His faithful people
+embalmed his body as best they could, carried it amid the greatest
+perils to the shore, where it was put on board a British cruiser,
+and on April 18, 1874, it was buried in Westminster Abbey.
+
+Among the remains brought home were his "Last Journals," brought
+down to within a few days of his death; these were published in
+1874. Stanley suggested the name of Livingstone for the main stream
+of the Congo (hence the Baptist Mission on the Lower Congo was
+called the "Livingstone Inland Mission"), and Mr. H. H. Johnston
+proposed that part of the East African territory acquired by Britain
+in 1890--the lower drainage area of the Zambesi--should be called
+Livingstone Land.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following letter, written by him to his children in 1853, during
+his first exploring tour, gives the character of the man, and shows
+his deep religious feeling:
+
+"_Sekelétu's Town, Linyanti, 2d October._--My dear Robert, Agnes,
+and Thomas and Oswell.--Here is another little letter for you all. I
+should like to see you much more than write to you, and speak with
+my tongue rather than with my pen, but we are far from each
+other--very, very far. Here are Scipone, and Meriye, and others who
+saw you as the first white children they ever looked at. Meriye came
+the other day and brought a round basket for Nannie. She made it of
+the leaves of the palmyra. Others put me in mind of you all by
+calling me Rananee, Rarobert, and there is a little Thomas in the
+town, and when I think of you I remember, though I am far off,
+Jesus, our good and gracious Jesus, is ever near both you and me,
+and then I pray to Him to bless you and make you good.
+
+"He is ever near. Remember this if you feel angry or naughty. Jesus
+is near you, and sees you, and He is so good and kind. When He was
+among men, those who heard him speak said, 'Never man spake like
+this man,' and we now say, 'Never did man love like Him.' You see
+little Zouga is carried on mamma's bosom. You are taken care of by
+Jesus with as much care as mamma takes care of Zouga. He is always
+watching you and keeping you in safety. It is very bad to sin, to do
+any naughty things, or speak angry or naughty words before Him.
+
+"My dear children, take Him as your Guide, your Helper, your Friend,
+and Saviour through life. Whatever you are troubled about, ask Him
+to keep you. Our God is good. We thank Him that we have such a
+Saviour and Friend as He is. Now you are little, but you will not
+always be so, hence you must learn to read, and write, and work. All
+clever men can both read and write, and Jesus needs clever men to do
+His work. Would you not like to work for Him among men? Jesus is
+wishing to send His gospel to all nations, and He needs clever men
+to do this. Would you like to serve Him? Well, you must learn now,
+and not get tired learning. After some time you will like learning
+better than playing, but you must play too in order to make your
+bodies strong and be able to serve Jesus.
+
+"I am glad to hear that you go to the academy. I hope you are
+learning fast. Don't speak Scotch. It is not so pretty as English.
+Is the Tau learning to read with mamma? I hope you are all kind to
+mamma. I saw a poor woman in a chain with many others, up at the
+Barotse. She had a little child, and both she and her child were
+very thin. See how kind Jesus was to you. No one can put you in
+chains unless you become bad. If, however, you learn bad ways,
+beginning only by saying bad words or doing little bad things, Satan
+will have you in chains for sin, and you will be hurried on in his
+bad ways till you are put into the dreadful place which God hath
+prepared for him and all who are like him. Pray to Jesus to deliver
+you from sin, give you new hearts, and make you His children. Kiss
+Zouga, mamma, and each other for me.
+
+                              "Your ever affectionate father."
+
+
+
+
+CYRUS W. FIELD[20]
+
+         [Footnote 20: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By MURAT HALSTEAD
+
+(1819-1892)
+
+[Illustration: Cyrus W. Field.]
+
+
+We, the people of the United States, have been celebrating with
+memorable pomp the discovery of our hemisphere by Christopher
+Columbus, and the elder nations and far-off islands have joined us
+in an immense festivity, honoring beyond all example of approbation
+an adventure that was a marvel, and an achievement that is immortal.
+
+All the world remembers the voyage of Columbus, that, persevered in
+through trials and perils, ended in triumph--how he studied the
+stars and the charts, and out of the dreams of ages wove the fabric
+of fancy that grew to theory, and prophecy, and history, that there
+was land beyond the Atlantic; and there is no moment in human life
+supreme above, or of more fascinating interest than, that when, from
+the deck of his caravel he saw the light on the shore of the new
+world.
+
+An incident worthy to be associated for ever with this, is that of
+Cyrus West Field, in his library, turning over a globe, after a
+conversation relative to extending a line of telegraph to
+Newfoundland, to reduce the time of the transmission of news between
+Europe and America; when the idea flashed into his mind that the
+telegraph might span the Atlantic. The next day Mr. Field wrote to
+Lieutenant Maury, of the National Observatory at Washington, and to
+Professor Morse, who invented the telegraph.
+
+The Atlantic telegraph was as truly the conception and the
+accomplishment of Mr. Field, as the discovery of America was the
+ambition and the act of Columbus; and Chief Justice Chase was not
+extravagant when he said the telegraph across the ocean was "the
+most wonderful achievement of civilization," and entitled "its
+author to a distinguished rank among benefactors;" or when he added:
+"High upon that illustrious roll will his name be placed, and there
+will it remain while oceans divide and telegraphs unite mankind."
+John Bright said: "My friend Field, the Columbus of modern times, by
+his cable has moored the New World alongside the Old."
+
+Equally lofty testimony to the splendor of his fame is that of the
+London _Times_ of August 6, 1858, saying: "Since the discovery of
+Columbus, nothing has been done in any degree comparable to the vast
+enlargement which has thus been given to the sphere of human
+activity."
+
+From the first vital spark that at last glows into the bloom of
+life, each human being is endowed with certain qualities and
+capacities, aptitudes, inspirations, possibilities, limitations; and
+if one trace the stream of blood to its remotest sources, there is
+no inconsistency in ancestry, and the science of humanity may be as
+strict within its boundaries as that of geology, or the story of
+fruitful trees, or the magnetic constellations.
+
+The four famous brothers have given the Field family an almost
+unique celebrity in this country. They were the sons of the Rev.
+David Dudley Field, of Western Massachusetts, the room-mate at Yale
+College of Jeremiah Evarts, father of William M. Evarts. Field and
+Evarts entered college together in 1798, and graduated in 1802. The
+American Fields are the descendants of John Field, the astronomer of
+Ardsley, in Yorkshire, who gained a great reputation by publishing
+astronomical tables, and died in 1587. Ardsley, it has not passed
+from the general recollection, was the name of the estate on the
+Hudson where for so many years Mr. Cyrus W. Field made his summer
+home.
+
+The family name was in the fifteenth century changed from Feld,
+Feild, Felde, and Fielde, into its present form; and John Field, the
+astronomer, was the first to introduce the Copernican system in
+England, and he received a patent in 1558, authorizing him to bear
+as a crest over his family arms, an arm issuing from clouds and
+supporting a globe. Dr. Richard Field, chaplain of Queen Elizabeth,
+was of the same family, and author of the "Book of the Church,"
+republished in four volumes at Oxford in 1843.
+
+It was the last day of autumn, November 30, 1819, at the Morgan Place,
+on a hill that sloped to the river, near Stockbridge, Mass., that
+Cyrus West Field was born. There were three older brothers--David
+Dudley, Timothy Beale, and Matthew Dickinson. The Cyrus came from a
+man of note in the town, named Cyrus Williams, and the West from Dr.
+Stephen West, the predecessor of Dr. David Dudley Field in the pulpit
+at Stockbridge. It is said of the child that he was of very delicate
+organization, so weak and frail that his body "had to be supported by
+a frame in which he could roll around the room till his limbs could
+get strength to bear him." There was, however (as his younger brother,
+Dr. Henry M. Field, the historian of the family, says in his vigorous
+English), "a nervous energy and elasticity derived from his mother,"
+that brought him up, and "once set upon his little feet, he developed
+by incessant motion," and he was noted for "restless activity," a
+characteristic of his whole life. His frame, always slight, "became
+tough and wiry, capable of great effort and great endurance." Cyrus
+was the one of the Field boys who did not go to college. When fifteen
+years of age, his brother, David Dudley, who was nearly fifteen years
+his senior, and lived until his ninetieth year, secured a place for
+him in the store of A. T. Stewart. Cyrus was a thorough country boy,
+and his mother's boy, and did not take kindly to the city at first.
+Dr. Field says: "I well remember hearing my brother Matthew tell
+mother how Cyrus had come down to the boat on which he left the city,
+and wept bitterly; and mother telling him, the next time he went to
+New York, if his little brother felt so still, to bring him home." Mr.
+Field soon grew tired of being a clerk, and launched out in the
+manufacture and sale of paper. His capital was his brains--and in
+twelve years, when he was but thirty-three years old, he was in
+possession of a handsome fortune, and thought of retiring. This,
+however, was only a phase of restlessness, and he had before him
+nearly forty years of extraordinary activity. His great works and
+trials, his counting his gains and losses by millions, his glory and
+his sorrows, were all before him. The first of his many long journeys
+was to South America, with the artist Church, who painted for him the
+"Heart of the Andes." He ascended the Magdalena River, climbed the
+Andes to Bogota, crossed to Quito, and by way of Guayaquil, in
+Ecuador, reached the western coast, and returned home October, 1853,
+in time for the golden wedding of his parents. Then he set about the
+task of retirement from business, and was in a feverish state of
+energy upon that subject, and drifted into the twelve years harassing
+struggle, from the time when, in his house in Gramercy Park, he sat
+alone and turned over the globe, and thought of a telegraphic cable
+through the Atlantic, until the tremendous task was gloriously
+finished. After writing to Maury and Morse, Mr. Field called in his
+next-door neighbor, Peter Cooper; and next called Moses Taylor, who
+listened for an hour without saying a word; and brought in his most
+intimate friend, Marshall O. Roberts; and then Mr. Chandler White (who
+died the next year and was succeeded by Wilson G. Hunt). They
+organized "The New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company,"
+Field, Cooper, Taylor, and Roberts putting in $20,000 each, and White
+a smaller sum. Field and White, with David Dudley Field as legal
+adviser, set forth for Newfoundland to get a charter, and called it a
+fishing excursion. They got a land donation, and an exclusive right to
+land cable for fifty years. There was first to build a line of
+telegraph four hundred miles through the wilderness, across the huge
+island. The land-line work lasted three years, and each of the
+parties who started by putting in $20,000, put in ten times that
+amount, and Field much more. The first cable across the Gulf of St.
+Lawrence was a failure. The second one held; and at last there rolled
+two thousand miles of tempestuous ocean, with a bottom that was a
+mystery, between the verge of the American soil and the Irish coast.
+
+Mr. Cyrus W. Field visited England as an Atlantic cable missionary,
+and addressed the Chambers of Commerce in the principal cities, and
+the members of the Government. His intense convictions and incessant
+enthusiasm made way. The scientific men of England were cautious but
+hopeful. There had been, as it happened, the year before a survey of
+the North Atlantic, disclosing conditions of the bottom of the sea,
+and they were reassuring. The Government was so far interested as to
+engage to furnish ships to lay the cable, and to guarantee £14,000 a
+year for messages sent if it proved a success--four per cent. of the
+expected cost; but the capital had to be raised by private
+enterprise, and Mr. Field visited Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester,
+and Liverpool, and subscribed one-fourth of the whole sum. His
+persistence was continued until the money was raised; but his
+friends in America were not eager for the stock, and he had to pay
+into the treasury of the company £88,000 in gold. The complete
+responsibility of Mr. Field appears at every point. He was the
+inspiration and the moving force from first to last. The work was
+strange, and there were delays and details of difficulty arising at
+every step, that a thousand times would have been insurmountable, if
+it had not been for the indomitable Field, whose tenacity even
+exceeded his impetuosity. There were two governments to be
+negotiated with to furnish ships. The cable was at last ready and on
+board--and three hundred and sixty-five years after Columbus sailed
+from the shores of Spain, Field sailed from Ireland, the
+Lord-Lieutenant, the Earl of Carlisle, making the speech of the
+occasion. The first effort was to lay the cable straight from
+Ireland to Newfoundland, and the start was made Wednesday, August 5,
+1857. Three hundred and fifty miles out the cable broke. That was
+failure; and Field's private fortune had suffered severely from his
+absence. But the next year he was again in England and another start
+was made--the ships going half-way and joining the cable and running
+both ways. The cable parted again and again, and the ships returned
+to England. All were in despair but Field, and he rallied once more,
+and another trial was made--and succeeded. The cable lasted for a
+few weeks and gave out. The people were wild with delight at the
+success, and utterly cast down and disgusted by the failure. But the
+proof was out; the thing could be done. Cables had been laid in the
+Mediterranean, and final success was in sight. A new cable was made
+and coiled on the Great Eastern--and when starting from Ireland and
+one thousand two hundred and fifty miles were out, there was a break
+where the ocean was two miles deep, and a year was lost. Then
+another cable on the Great Eastern, and in 1866 it held out all the
+way over. This was the year of the war between Prussia and Austria,
+just after the battle of Sadowa. The next thing was to find and
+splice the lost cable of the year before, and that was done, one of
+the most wonderful things that ever happened. Mr. Field told the
+story before the Chamber of Commerce of New York in November, 1866,
+saying, after the lost cable was found and spliced: "A few minutes
+of suspense and a flash told of the lightning current again set
+free--some turned their heads away and wept, others broke into
+cheers. Soon the wind arose and we were for thirty-six hours exposed
+to all the dangers of a storm on the Atlantic; yet in the fury of
+the gale, as I sat in the electrician's room, a flash of light came
+up from the deep, which, having passed to Ireland, came back to me
+in mid-ocean, telling that those so dear to me, whom I had left on
+the banks of the Hudson, were well, and following us with their
+prayers. This was like a whisper of God from the sea, bidding me
+keep heart and hope."
+
+The Great Eastern safely landed the second cable, and the two worlds
+were safely forever joined. Mr. Field said he had often, in the long
+struggle--nearly thirteen years in the forests of Newfoundland, on
+ships in stormy seas--almost accused himself of madness, sacrificing
+everything for what might prove, after all, but a dream. He received
+the thanks of Congress, with a gold medal--the grand medal of the
+French Exposition of 1867. Honors were heaped upon him. If he had
+been a British subject, he would have been made a baronet. He had
+given twelve years without accepting remuneration for time or toil,
+and his hopeful, at last haggard dream, was a marvellous golden
+reality.
+
+He was forty-seven years of age. He visited Egypt at the opening of
+the Suez Canal in 1864. He attended the millennial celebration of
+the settlement of Iceland in August, 1874. He made with his wife a
+trip around the world in 1880. He was known in all civilized lands
+as one of the foremost men of his time. All the people of the
+highest distinction in England knew and admired him as the most
+typical and celebrated of Americans. Mr. Gladstone, Mr. John Bright,
+the Duke of Argyle, Dean Stanley were his intimate friends. His
+house at Gramercy Park was the scene of a splendid hospitality.
+There gathered in his ample parlors, stored with souvenirs from
+every land, and in his dining-room, men and women of the highest
+consideration at home and abroad.
+
+The keenness of his intelligence had increased with his
+unprecedented experience. His triumphs had given him confidence in
+his executive ability, and there was nothing too daring for him to
+contemplate. His bitter lessons in going to the verge of ruin, when
+he gave the fortune of his youth to the enterprise that he carried
+to success, were amply pondered, and he resolved never again to
+allow those near and dear to him to take the chances of cruel
+fortune and the anxieties of impending want.
+
+When his years were numbered in the thirties, he was meditating
+retirement from business; and when he was in the sixties, his
+irrepressible activities carried him into the development of the
+elevated railway system on Manhattan Island, with the same ardor and
+fixed purpose with which, thirty years before, he had invaded the
+wilderness of Newfoundland to find a basis of operations for the
+conquest of the Atlantic. His faith was undaunted and without limit.
+His touch revealed new fortunes. He saw that the elevated lines that
+developed Harlem, would also improve lower New York; and the
+Washington Building, No. 1 Broadway, was the materialization of the
+thought. The intensity that was remarked in his childhood, and that
+commanded the confidence of the capitalists of England, knew no
+abatement. He had been very cautious in advising Englishmen about
+investments, but had imparted to some of them the assurance that
+United States Bonds were as sound as the English investment of
+national debt, and they profited by accepting his judgment. He
+insisted upon popularizing the elevated roads by a uniform fare of
+five cents, and had it done against strong opposition, and was more
+confident than ever in the stock, of which he had an enormous
+holding. But it took years longer than he had calculated to make
+good his plans, and in the interval came a financial storm that
+compelled him to submit to a heavy loss. He bore his misfortune with
+fortitude, and still had a competency ample for him, when there came
+a torrent of ill-fortune--the loss of his beloved wife, and the
+failure of his sons, under circumstances that bore the distressing
+stamp of insanity in one of them, a taint of madness that was in the
+blood which had been so prolific of genius. He suffered where he was
+strongest and weakest--in his love and his pride.
+
+His spirit would have been invincible if his heart had not been
+broken. No husband and father was ever more solicitous for the
+welfare of wife and children. The death of his wife, followed by the
+disasters that overtook his sons, wounded him as mortally as if a
+flight of arrows had pierced him. The very contingencies of fortune
+against which he thought he had provided with infinite painstaking,
+fell upon him as if from clouds in a sky he thought clear. His
+deepest resolution was that, after the long strain of facing the
+total loss of fortune during the dark years of the cable enterprise,
+he never again would consent to take the chances of the catastrophe
+that had haunted him, and from which he had escaped at such hazard
+that the fortunate interposition seemed miraculous; and he did not
+consciously do the wrong to himself and dear ones he had with such
+anxiety sought to avoid. His misfortunes were as incalculable as
+incurable.
+
+The family affection of the Fields is one of their distinctions, and
+the love the four brothers, known to all the world, bore each other,
+was as gentle and full of all happiness as that of children. The
+"little acts of kindness, little deeds of love," that, as the old
+hymn says, would make the world an Eden, were never wanting. The
+festivals in which they delighted were those of the family--the
+eightieth birthday of the oldest brother--the golden wedding. In his
+long travels, Mr. Field was ever thoughtful of home, and it was like
+him, giving a dinner to a company of Americans in Edinburgh, to
+telegraph to their families so that each guest found the news of
+that day, from his own fireside, in a cablegram on his plate.
+
+Mr. Field was no doubt attracted to Iceland, in 1874, by his studies
+of the northern waters; the way the world tapers off in the high
+latitudes, and the fact that Iceland must have been often in his
+mind as he studied Newfoundland and Ireland, and knew that Iceland
+was so near Greenland as to belong to the American continent, and to
+have been a stepping-stone from Norway to Labrador. He was regarded
+by the Icelanders as almost as great a man as the King of Denmark,
+who visited his remote possession at the same time; and they thought
+Field even a greater discoverer than Columbus, for they said the
+Genoese navigator got his knowledge of the land in the west from
+their ancestors, and sailed on a certainty.
+
+On the day President Garfield was shot down, he was on his way to
+Williams College, and was to dine that night with Mr. Cyrus Field at
+Ardsley, and go to the old place he called "the sweetest in the
+world" next day. A yacht was waiting to convey the President from
+Jersey City, when the news of the assassination became known. The
+President suffered mentally because he had not made adequate
+provision for his family, and Mr. Field headed a subscription list
+with a liberal sum, and in a few days had a quarter of a million
+dollars safely invested for Mrs. Garfield and her children. The
+motive of this timely and apt generosity was, first, to afford
+consolation to the dying chief magistrate.
+
+It was within the scope of the ambition of Mr. Field to span the
+Pacific as well as the Atlantic Ocean with a cable; but having
+triumphantly overcome one ocean, he failed to put a girdle round the
+earth, as De Lesseps, having succeeded with the Suez Canal--the only
+work of the age to be named with the Atlantic telegraph--failed at
+Darien.
+
+If the prosperity of Mr. Field had continued, and the light had not
+gone out in his home, he would not have been content until he had
+ransacked the globe for ways and means to have followed the sun to
+Asia with the telegraph. His footsteps point the way, and the road
+to India is westward.
+
+The golden wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus W. Field was attended by
+hundreds of those who knew and loved them, and the great double
+house of the Fields, fronting on Gramercy Park, was full of bright
+faces and glittering with lights. The historic home was soon
+darkened and made desolate. The master, the renowned victor--no name
+more certain of an honorable immortality than his--was one whom
+"unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster." His wife
+passed away at Ardsley before the deeper gloom of the storm, and he
+died there July 12, 1892. In his delirium on the morning of his
+death, he was again on the stormy coast with the cable fleet; and he
+said: "Hold those ships--do not let them sail yet." Through the
+centuries there had descended to him from the old astronomer, his
+ancestor, the far-flashing conception of enterprise and
+understanding of the splendor of destiny that was his star, and
+mingled with its light were the gentle influences of the religion of
+his fathers, always to him real and radiant. He sleeps well, amid
+the scenes where he passed his boyhood, and for which his heart
+yearned always--beside his beloved wife; and carved in the marble of
+their tomb as the last testimony to the loving heart of his
+companion, are the words: "Love is eternal." The recollection of his
+sorrows will not, as the centuries come and go, dim the beautiful
+light of his illustrious name.
+
+[Signature: Murat Halstead.]
+
+
+
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA
+
+By DONALD MACLEOD, D.D.
+
+(Born 1819-1901)
+
+[Illustration: Queen Victoria.]
+
+
+Well do I remember the effect produced on the audience of students,
+of which I was then one, when Lord Macaulay delivered his Rectorial
+address in the University of Glasgow, and when, after giving such
+pictures as he alone could paint, of the character of the four
+centuries that had closed since the university had been
+founded--each epoch presenting a scene of bloodshed and
+misgovernment--he sketched the possible future of the college, and
+anticipated the time when coming generations would tell how certain
+contemplated changes had been accomplished during the reign of "the
+Good Queen Victoria." The phrase was accentuated by an oratorical
+swing; and when it was given, the tremendous burst of enthusiasm
+showed that they who listened felt the great historian had chosen
+the right epithet, and that he intended it in the sense that, as
+some monarchs are called "Great" and some "Little," so for all time
+Victoria would be named "the Good Queen." This was said more than
+forty years ago, before Tennyson had fixed the "Household name,"
+"Albert the Good," for
+
+                          "That star
+  Which shone so close beside Thee, that ye made
+  One light together."
+
+The epoch in our history which is embraced between the years 1837
+and 1887, is unparalleled. At no time in the history of the nation,
+or of the world, has there been such rapid and beneficent progress.
+We, who are citizens of "the old country," scarcely realize the
+extent of our dominion. The Roman Empire was one-fourth its size;
+all the Russias contain an eighth less; it is sixteen times as large
+as France, and three times as large as the United States. The United
+Kingdom, with its colonies and dependencies, includes about
+one-fifth of the entire globe. The rapidity with which population
+has grown in some parts of our dominion may be measured by
+Australasia, which in 1837 had 134,059, and in 1885, 3,278,934, or
+twenty-three times as many more. When we turn from these figures to
+consider other fields of progress, we are still more amazed. It goes
+without saying that these last fifty years have seen the growth of
+railways and steamships from their infancy to their present
+world-embracing influence. The mileage of railways open in the
+United Kingdom in 1837 was about 294 miles, but a great proportion
+was worked by horses. In 1885 the mileage was 19,169, the gross
+receipts, £69,555,774; they carried about 1,275,000,000 passengers,
+and employed 367,793 men. Not a steamer had crossed the Atlantic by
+steam alone when the queen came to the throne, and her accession was
+in the year previous to that during which Wheatstone in this
+country, and Morse in America, introduced electric telegraphy. We,
+who enjoy express trains, six-penny telegrams, half-penny
+post-cards, and the parcel post, can scarcely realize that we are so
+near the time when mail-coaches and sailing-packets were almost the
+only means of conveyance, and when postage was a serious burden. The
+greatness of the changes in social life may be realized when we
+remember that, so recently as 1844, duelling was banished from the
+code of honor; that crime has diminished seventy-one per cent. since
+1837; and that while fifty years ago Government did nothing for
+education, there are now 30,000 public schools under the Privy
+Council. These facts are suggestive of the extent of the advance. Or
+if, without touching on the marvellous victories of science, we try
+to form an estimate of religious progress, and take the tables for
+Protestant missions as giving a fair indication of the zeal and
+self-sacrifice of the churches, we find that while British
+contributions in 1837 amounted to £316,610, in 1885 they reached
+£1,222,261.
+
+It may be said with truth that the progress thus indicated must have
+gone on, no matter who sat on the throne; but it would be unjust not
+to recognize the close influence which the Crown has directly and
+indirectly exercised on its advance. There has been no movement
+tending to the development of the arts and the industries of the
+country which has not enlisted the active sympathy of the royal
+family. From the first the Prince Consort recognized the important
+part which the sovereign could fulfil in reference to the peaceful
+victories of science and art. Beginning with agriculture--the
+improvement of stock and the better housing of agricultural
+laborers, we trace the effect of his constant toil in the series of
+industrial triumphs, of which the great exhibition of 1851 was the
+magnificent precursor; and, in recent years, the same kind of
+objects have always enlisted the best energies of the queen and her
+children.
+
+[Illustration: Victoria greeted as Queen.]
+
+The contrast is great and touching between the scene in Westminster
+Abbey, when, amid the pomp of a gorgeous ceremonial and the
+acclamation of her subjects, the fair girl-queen received the crown
+of Britain, and that other scene, when, after fifty years of a
+government that has been unblemished, she once more kneels in the
+same spot--a widow surrounded by her children and her children's
+children, bearing the burden of many sad as well as blessed
+memories, and encompassed with the thanksgivings of the three
+hundred millions of her subjects. We can imagine how oppressive, for
+one so loving, must then be the vision of the past, as she recalls,
+one after another, the once familiar and dear faces which greeted
+her coronation, those relatives, great ministers of state, and
+warriors of whom so few survive; and when all her happy married
+years and the years of parting and desolation appear in vivid
+retrospect. But if ever monarch had cause to bless God for His
+tender mercies, it must be she who can combine with the memory of
+her own life's hopes and trials the consciousness that, in the great
+work given her as a sovereign, she has been enabled to fulfil the
+beautiful desire of her innocent childhood, when, on her first being
+informed of her royal destiny, she indulged in no vain dream of
+power, but uttered the simple longing "to be good." That goodness
+has been her real greatness.
+
+The life of her majesty is marked by three great stages--her youth,
+her married life, and her widowhood. Each is bound to each by the
+tie of a consistent growth, passing through those experiences which
+are typical of God's education of His children, whether high or low,
+rich or poor.
+
+Her childhood, with its wise education, is very much the key to her
+after-life. Possessed naturally of a quick intellectual capacity,
+and an unusually accurate memory, a taste for music and the arts,
+and a deeply affectionate heart, she was admirably brought up by her
+mother, the Duchess of Kent, on whom the training of the future
+queen devolved from her infancy. If the education was as high as it
+was possible to afford a young and intelligent spirit, the moral
+influences were equally beneficial. The young princess, instead of
+being isolated within the formalities of a court, was allowed to
+become acquainted with the wants and sufferings of the poor, and to
+indulge her sympathies by giving them personal help. The contrast
+was a great one between the court of George IV., or even that of
+William, and the truly English home where the Duchess of Kent
+nurtured this sweet life in all that was simple, loving, and pure.
+There could scarcely have been a better school for an affectionate
+nature. All that we learn of her majesty at that time gives a
+consistent picture of great vivacity, thorough directness in her
+search after truth, warmth of heart, and considerateness for others,
+with a genuine love for all that is morally good. These were the
+characteristics which impressed those who saw her on the trying
+occasion when she was suddenly ushered into the foremost place in
+the greatest empire in the world. It was these characteristics which
+touched the hearts of the good archbishop and of the Chancellor of
+England when they announced her great destiny to the girl suddenly
+summoned from slumber. That first request, "My Lord Archbishop, pray
+for me!" revealed the depth of her character. It was the same when
+she had next day to pass through the ordeal of meeting the great
+councillors of state for the first time. Lord Melbourne, the Duke of
+Wellington, Peel, and the keen-eyed Secretary Greville, all felt the
+beautiful combination of dignity with unaffected simplicity, and of
+quick intelligence with royal courtesy. But they did not see the
+episode which followed the fatigue and excitement of the long
+formalities of the council, when the young queen rushed first of all
+to her mother's arms, there to indulge her feelings in a burst of
+tears, and then, with girlish naïveté, claiming the exercise of her
+royal prerogative to procure for herself two hours of absolute
+solitude.
+
+The earlier years of her reign were happily blessed with the wise
+and beneficent influence of Lord Melbourne. His relationship to the
+youthful sovereign was more that of a father and able political
+instructor than of a formal first minister of the crown. He was too
+experienced not heartily to appreciate the beautiful character of
+his young mistress, and the interest he took in her political
+education, and in everything likely to further her prosperity and
+happiness, was evidently kindled by warm affection. She was equally
+favored in having as adviser so sagacious a relative as her uncle
+Leopold, the late King of the Belgians. The Duke of Wellington
+regarded her almost as a daughter; and there was also, ever at hand,
+another, whose trained intellect and loyal heart exercised no little
+influence on her career--Baron Stockmar--to whose lofty ideal of the
+functions of royalty, calmly balanced treatment of all questions of
+state policy, and high-toned moral sympathies, both the queen and
+the prince consort have amply expressed their indebtedness.
+
+Without touching further on the earlier period of her reign, which
+was not without many incidents of interest, we turn to the married
+years of the queen as to a bright and sunny memory.
+
+The position of an unmarried or widowed queen necessarily entails a
+peculiar loneliness. She is surrounded by the rigorous demands of
+state necessity. If she has to form a judgment upon documents
+submitted to her, there is no one so close to her and so independent
+of all other influences as to be truly an _alter ego_. Faithful
+servants of the crown may do their best to be of use, but no one of
+them can be so near as to receive such unguarded confidences as can
+be given to the husband who shares every joy and sorrow. The queen's
+married life was ideally perfect. She married the man she loved, and
+each year deepened her early affection into an admiration, a
+reverence, and a pride which elevated her love into consecration.
+
+There was no home in England made more beautiful by all that was
+tender, cultured, and noble than that in which "the blameless
+prince" fulfilled his heroic career of duty, and shed the bright
+light of his joyous, affectionate, and keenly intellectual life.
+There were few homes in which a greater amount of trying and anxious
+work was more systematically accomplished, or in which there was a
+more exquisite blending of hard thinking with the enjoyment of the
+fine arts and the fulness of loving family happiness. We have
+picture after picture given us in the life of the Prince Consort
+which puts us in touch with these brilliant years, when the queen
+and he were never parted but for one or two brief intervals. Early
+hours of close labor were followed by a genial and hearty
+relaxation, and at every turn the wife and sovereign felt the
+blessedness of that presence which ministered to her in sickness
+with the gentleness of a woman, and which she leaned upon in hours
+of difficulty with complete trust in the strength and trueness of
+his wise intellect. There was no decrease on either side in those
+feelings and utterances of feeling which are so beautiful when they
+carry into after years the warmth of the first attachment, only
+hallowed and deepened by experience.
+
+[Illustration: Windsor Castle.]
+
+There were many fresh features in the kind of life which was
+introduced by the queen and the consort into the habits of the
+court. Among these none were more marked than the breaking up of
+that monotony which the restrictions that hitherto prevailed as to
+the residence of the royal family in one or two state palaces
+entailed. We can well understand how the Empress Eugénie should have
+found the Tuileries, in spite of its grandeur, no better than "_une
+belle prison_," and her delight at the comparative freedom she
+enjoyed at Windsor. The queen and Prince Consort inaugurated a new
+era in the customs of the court by taking advantage of the
+facilities afforded by modern methods of conveyance. Scarcely any
+part of the country celebrated for scenery, or any town famous for
+its industries, remained unvisited by them.
+
+The beneficial effects of these journeys were great. Loyalty is to a
+large extent a personal matter, and is necessarily deepened when the
+representative of the state not only possesses moral dignity of
+character but comes frequently into contact with the people. It is
+also of use to the crown that its wearer should know, from actual
+observation, the conditions of life in the country. It is in the
+light of this mutual action of acquaintance between prince and
+people that we estimate the value of that knowledge which the Prince
+of Wales, his brothers, and his sons have gained of so many parts of
+the empire. The Prince Consort felt keenly the use of these
+influences. "How important and beneficent," he once said, "is the
+part given to the royal family of England to act in the development
+of those distant and rising countries, who recognize in the British
+crown and their allegiance to it, their supreme bond of union with
+the mother country and to each other!"
+
+During each year of their married life the queen and Prince Consort
+went on some interesting tour. In England, Oxford and Cambridge,
+Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, received royal visits,
+while such historical houses as Chatsworth, Hatfield, Stowe, and
+Strathfieldsay were honored by their presence. Ireland was thrice
+visited. Wales more than once. The first visit to Scotland was made
+in 1842, another in 1844, and from 1847 only one year passed without
+a long residence in the north--first at Ardverachie, on Loch Laggan,
+and then at what was to be their Highland home on Deeside. Repeated
+visits were also made to the Continent, sometimes in state and
+sometimes in as much privacy as could be commanded.
+
+It is when we come to this bright time, so full of fresh interest
+and of a delightful freedom, that we have the advantage of the
+queen's own "Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands."
+Her visit to Edinburgh in 1842, and the drive by Birnam and
+Aberfeldy to Taymouth, and the splendor of the reception, when, amid
+the cheers of a thousand Highlanders and the wild notes of the
+bagpipes, she was welcomed by Lord Breadalbane, evidently stirred
+every feeling of romance. "It seemed," she wrote, "as if a great
+chieftain of olden feudal times was receiving his sovereign." It
+appeared like a new world, when, throwing off for a time the
+restrictions of state, she found herself at Blair two years
+afterward, climbing the great hills of Atholl, and from the top of
+Tulloch looking forth on the panorama of mountain and glen. "It was
+quite romantic; here we were with only this Highlander behind us
+holding the ponies, not a house, not a creature near us but the
+pretty Highland sheep, with their horns and black faces. It was the
+most delightful, most romantic, ride and walk I ever had." These
+early visits to Scotland inspired her with her love for the
+Highlands and the Highlanders. She found there quite a world of
+poetry. The majestic scenery, the fresh, bracing air, the
+picturesqueness of the kilted gillies, the piping and the dancing,
+and the long days among the heather, recalled scenes which Sir
+Walter Scott has glorified for all time, and which are especially
+identified with the fortunes of the unhappy Stuarts, of whom she is
+now the nearest representative.
+
+It was in 1848 that the court proceeded for the first time to
+Balmoral, then a picturesque but small castle. The air of Deeside
+had been recommended by Sir James Clark, the queen's physician, and
+his anticipation of the benefits to be derived from residence there
+was so completely realized that although four years passed before
+the property was actually purchased, yet preparations were made for
+establishing there a royal home. Plans for the future castle and for
+laying out the grounds were gone into by the prince with keen
+delight. "All has become my dear Albert's own creation, own work,
+own building, own laying out, as at Osborne; and his great taste and
+the impress of his dear hand have been stamped everywhere."
+
+It was here that the queen and the Prince Consort enjoyed for more
+than twelve years a delightful freedom, mingling with their people,
+devising the wisest methods for insuring their well-being, going
+with them to worship in their plain (very plain!) parish church, and
+being to each and all unaffectedly sincere friends. Every spot
+around soon became consecrated by some sweet association. Every
+great family event had its commemoration amid the scenery around the
+castle; though many a cairn, once raised in joy, is now, alas! a
+monument of sorrow. The life at Balmoral was in every sense
+beneficial. There never has been there the kind of relaxation that
+comes from idleness. Systematic work has been always maintained at
+Balmoral as at Windsor. Early hours in the fresh morning and a
+regular arrangement of time during the day have given room for the
+constant business of the crown; but every now and then there were
+glorious "outings," whether for sport or for some far-reaching
+expedition, which gave fresh zest to happy and united toil.
+
+There is more than one characteristic of the queen which may recall
+to Scotchmen the history of their own Stuarts, and among these is
+her enjoyment of expeditions _incognita_. The Prince Consort, with
+his simple German heart, entered fully into the "fun" of such
+journeys, as, starting off on long rides across mountain-passes and
+through swollen burns and streams, lunching on heights from which
+they could gaze far and wide over mountain and strath, they would
+reach some little roadside inn, and there, assuming a feigned name,
+had the delight of feeling themselves "private people," while the
+simple fare and the ridiculous _contretemps_ which frequently
+occurred were enjoyed the more keenly because of their contrast to
+accustomed state. And during all these years their domestic life was
+unbroken by any great family sorrow. It was not till a year before
+her great bereavement that the queen lost her mother, the Duchess of
+Kent. Few can read the account of that sorrowful parting without
+being drawn nearer to the sovereign by the tie of a common humanity,
+so deep and tender is the affection that is revealed.
+
+But till 1861 the queen was surrounded by all those who were dearest
+to her, and she and the prince shared the sweet task of
+superintending their children's education. Few parents more
+anxiously considered the best methods for securing a sound moral and
+religious training. "The greatest maxim of all," writes the queen,
+"is that the children shall be brought up as simply and in as
+domestic a way as possible, that (without interfering with their
+lessons) they should be as much as possible with their parents, and
+learn to place their greatest confidence in them in all things." As
+to religious training, the queen's conviction was that it is best
+when given to a child "day by day at his mother's knee." It was only
+the great pressure of public duty which rendered it impossible for
+her to fulfil her part so completely as she desired. "It is a hard
+case for me," her majesty writes, in reference to the princess
+royal, "that my occupations prevent me being with her when she says
+her prayers."
+
+The religious convictions of the queen and the Prince Consort were
+deep. They both cared little for those mere accidents and
+conventionalities of religion which so many magnify into essentials.
+The prince, eminently devout, insisted on the realities of religion.
+"We want not what is safe, but true," was his commentary on the
+exaggerated outcry against "Essays and Reviews." "The Gospel, and
+the unfettered right to its use," was his claim for Protestantism.
+For his own spirit, like that of the queen, was truly religious. The
+quiet evenings spent together before communion, and the directness
+and reverence with which both served God were combined with an utter
+abhorrence of all intolerance. Such qualities are generally
+misunderstood by the narrow-minded, who have only their own
+"shibboleths" to test all faith, and the one Church--whatever it may
+be--that they regard as "true." The queen and the prince rose above
+such distinctions; they shared the Catholicism of St. Paul, "Grace
+be with all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity."
+
+But these bright and happy years were doomed to a sudden ending. It
+is only when we have realized all that her husband was to her that
+we can measure how fearful was the blow to her loving heart when he
+who was her pride and her constant companion was laid low. We may
+well feel what a shattering it brought to all that hitherto had
+enriched her life, and how very desolate her position became when
+she was left in loneliness on the throne, a widow separated by her
+queendom from many of those supports which others find near them,
+but from which she was deprived by her position. "Fourteen happy and
+blessed years have passed," she wrote, in 1854, "and I confidently
+trust many more will pass, and find us in old age as we now are,
+happily and devotedly united. Trials we must have, but what are they
+if we are together?" In God's wisdom that hope was not to be
+realized, and in 1861 the stroke fell, and it fell with crushing
+power.
+
+It is not for us to lift the curtain of sorrow that fell like a
+funeral pall over the first years of her widowhood. For many a day
+it seemed as if the grief was more than she could bear, and although
+she was sustained through it all by God's grace, and supported by
+the sympathy of the nation, yet it was naturally a long-continued
+and absorbing sorrow. Other blows have fallen since then. The tender
+and wise Princess Alice, and the thoughtful and cultured Duke of
+Albany, have also been gathered to their rest; and the queen has had
+to mourn over one after another of her most faithful servants taken
+from her. But the hallowing hand of time, the soothing remembrance
+of unspeakable mercies, and the call to noble duty, have done much
+to restore the strength, if not the joy, of former days. Her people
+rejoice, and the influence of the Crown is enormously strengthened,
+when in these later years the queen has been able once more to
+mingle with the nation.
+
+When we touch on the third period of her life--which may well be
+termed that of sorrow, although brightened by many happy events in
+the domestic life of her children--we reach times that are familiar
+to every reader. These have been years in which the cares of state
+have often been exceedingly burdensome. The days of anxiety during
+the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny have more than once had their
+counterpart. Afghanistan, Zululand with its Isandula, and the
+Transvaal War with its Majuba Hill, Egypt, and the Soudan, brought
+hours of sore anxiety to the sovereign; but they were probably not
+more harassing to intellect and heart than the months of difficult
+diplomacy which the threatening aspect of European politics
+frequently laid upon Government.
+
+I may say in passing that no portrait of her appears to me to be
+quite satisfactory. They usually have only one expression, that of
+sadness and thoughtfulness, and so far they give a true
+representation; for when there is nothing to rouse her interest and
+when she is silent, that look of sadness is doubtless what chiefly
+impresses one. Her face then bears the traces of weary thought and
+of trying sorrow; but when she is engaged in conversation, and
+especially if her keen sense of humor has been touched, her
+countenance becomes lit with an exceedingly engaging brightness, or
+beams with heartiest laughter.
+
+Her life at Balmoral since her great sorrow maintains, as far as may
+be, the traditions of the happy past. She still makes expeditions,
+_cognita_ or _incognita_, sometimes to the scenes of former
+enjoyment or to new places of interest. She has in this way visited
+Blair, Dunkeld, Invermark, Glenfiddich, Invertrossachs, Dunrobin,
+Inverlochy, Inverary, Loch Marll, and Broxmouth.
+
+The queen, among her people at Balmoral, gives a splendid example to
+every landlord. "The first lady in the land" is the most gracious
+mistress possible. Her interest is no condescending "make-believe,"
+as we sometimes find it in the case of others, who seek a certain
+popularity among their dependents by showing spasmodic attentions
+which it is difficult to harmonize with a prevailing indifference.
+With the queen it is the unaffected care of one who really loves her
+people, and who is keenly touched by all that touches them. She
+knows them all by name, and in the times of their sorrow they
+experience from her a personal sympathy peculiarly soothing. There
+is indeed no part of the volumes she has given us more surprising
+than the minute knowledge she there shows of all the people who have
+been in any way connected with her. The gillies, guides, and
+gamekeepers, the maids who have served her, the attendants,
+coachmen, and footmen, are seldom mentioned without some notice of
+their lives being recorded as faithfully as is the case with peers
+and peeresses. How few mistresses are there who, burdened as she is
+with duty, would thus hold in kindest remembrance each faithful
+servant, become acquainted with their circumstances, and provide for
+them in age or in trial with generous solicitude. It is this rich
+humanity of feeling that is her noblest characteristic. The public
+are accustomed to see messages of sympathy sent by the queen in
+cases of disaster and of accident, but they cannot know how truly
+those calamities fall upon her own heart. As far as her life in the
+Highlands is concerned, she is now perhaps the best specimen we have
+of what the old Highland chieftain used to be, only that in her case
+we find the benefits of paternal government without its harsh
+severities. There is the same frank and hearty attachment to her
+dependents, the same intimate knowledge of each one of them, the
+same recognition of services. It is a queenly quality to recognize
+what is worthy, no matter what the rank may be. It was from this she
+placed so much confidence in her faithful attendant, John Brown. Her
+great kindness to him was her own generous interpretation of the
+long and loyal services of one who, for more than thirty years, had
+been personal attendant on the Prince Consort and herself, leading
+her pony during many a long day upon the hills, watching over her
+safety in London as well as on Deeside, and who, on more than one
+occasion, protected her from peril. "His attention, care and
+faithfulness cannot be exceeded," she writes in the first volume of
+the "Leaves," "and the state of my health, which of late years has
+been sorely tried and weakened, renders such qualifications most
+valuable."
+
+
+
+
+FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
+
+By LIZZIE ALLDRIDGE
+
+(Born 1820)
+
+
+A very distinguished lady nurse, who has been in half the hospitals
+in Europe, once said to me: "To Florence Nightingale, who was my own
+first teacher and inspirer, we owe the wonderful change that has
+taken place in the public mind with regard to nursing. When I first
+began my hospital training, hospital nursing was thought to be a
+profession which no decent woman of any rank could follow. If a
+servant turned nurse, it was supposed she did so because she had
+lost her character. We have changed all that now. Modern nursing
+owes its first impulse to Florence Nightingale."
+
+[Illustration: Florence Nightingale.]
+
+I don't suppose that any of my young readers have ever seen a
+hospital nurse of the now nearly extinct Gamp type; but I have. I
+have seen her, coarse-faced, thick of limb, heavy of foot, brutal in
+speech, crawling up and down the stairs or about the wards, in
+dresses and aprons that made me feel (although quite well and with a
+good healthy appetite) as if I would not have my good dinner just
+then. These were the old-fashioned "Sairey Gamps." But Florence
+Nightingale has been too strong for even the immortal "Sairey." Go
+now through the corridors and wards of a modern hospital; every
+nurse you meet will be neat and trim, with spotless dress and cap
+and apron, moving quickly but quietly to and fro, doing her work
+with kindness and intelligence.
+
+It was in 1820, the year George the Third's long life quite faded
+out, that the younger of the two daughters of William Shore
+Nightingale was born at Florence, and named after that lovely city.
+
+Mr. Nightingale, of Embley Park, Hampshire, and the Lea Hurst,
+Derbyshire, was a wealthy land-owner. He was of the Shores of
+Derbyshire, but inherited the fortune with the name of Nightingale
+through his mother. Lea Hurst, where Miss Nightingale passed the
+summer months of each year, is situated in the Matlock district,
+among bold masses of limestone rock, gray walls, full of fossils,
+covered with moss and lichen, with the changeful river Derwent now
+dashing over its stony bed, now quietly winding between little dales
+with clefts and dingles. Those who have travelled by the Derby and
+Buxton Railway will remember the narrow valleys, the mountain
+streams, the wide spans of high moorland, the distant ranges of
+hills beyond the hills of the district. Lea Hurst, a gable-ended
+house, standing among its own woods and commanding wonderful views
+of the Peak country, is about two miles from Cromford station.
+
+At Lea Hurst much of Florence Nightingale's childhood was passed.
+There she early developed that intense love for every living
+suffering thing, that grew with her growth, until it became the
+master-passion of her life.
+
+Florence Nightingale always retained her belief in animals. Many
+years after her name was known all over the world, she wrote: "A
+small pet animal is often an excellent companion for the sick, for
+long chronic cases especially." An invalid, in giving an account of
+his nursing by a nurse and a dog, infinitely preferred that of the
+dog. "Above all," he said, "it did not talk." Even Florence
+Nightingale's maimed dolls were tenderly nursed and bandaged.
+
+Mr. Nightingale was a man singularly in advance of his time as
+regards the training of girls. The "higher education of women" was
+unknown to the general public in those days, but not to Mr.
+Nightingale. His daughter was taught mathematics, and studied the
+classics, history, and modern languages under her father's
+guidance. These last were afterward of the greatest use to her in
+the Crimea. But she was no "learned lady;" only a well-educated
+Englishwoman all round. She was an excellent musician, and skilful
+in work with the needle; and the delicate trained touch thus
+acquired stood her in good stead, for the soldiers used to say that
+a wound which Miss Nightingale dressed "was sure to get well."
+
+She felt a strong craving for work, more even than the schools and
+cottages, the care of the young, the sick, and the aged (in which
+she followed her mother's example) could afford her at her father's
+home. Mrs. Browning tells us to
+
+                 "Get leave to work
+  In this world; 'tis the best you get at all."
+
+Florence Nightingale not only got leave to work, but did so, very
+quietly but very persistently. And so she became a pioneer for less
+courageous souls, and won for them also "leave to work." Taught by
+her father, she soon learned to distinguish between what was really
+good work and which mere make-believe. She had many opportunities,
+even as a child, of seeing really fine, artistic work both in
+science and art. She set up a high standard, and was never satisfied
+with anything short of the best, either in herself or others. It is
+a grand thing to know good work when you see it.
+
+The love of work, however, with Florence Nightingale, always went
+hand in hand with that love for every living thing in God's world
+which was born with her and which was never crowded out by all this
+education. As she grew up she more and more felt that helpfulness
+was the first law of her being; but her reason and intellect having
+been so carefully trained, she was thoroughly persuaded that, in
+order to help effectually, one must know thoroughly both the cause
+of suffering and its radical cure.
+
+The study of nursing had an irresistible attraction for her. Few
+people in England at that time valued nursing. Florence Nightingale
+was convinced that indifference arose from the all but absolute
+ignorance of what nursing should be, and she set herself to acquire
+the necessary knowledge to enable her to carry it out in the very
+best and most scientific way. She never lost an opportunity of
+visiting a hospital, either at home or abroad. She gave up the life
+of so-called "pleasure," which it was then considered a young woman
+of her position ought to lead, and after having very carefully
+examined innumerable nursing institutions at home and abroad, at
+length went to the well-known Pastor Fliedner's Deaconesses, at
+Kaiserswerth, where she remained for several months.
+
+After leaving Kaiserswerth, Miss Nightingale was for a while with
+the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, in Paris, so anxious was she to
+see how nursing was carried on under many different systems. It was
+during 1851, the year of the first Great Exhibition, that she was
+thus fitting herself practically for the great task that lay before
+her in the not very distant future.
+
+On her return to England, Miss Nightingale found a patient that
+required all her time and help of every kind. This patient was none
+other than the Sanatorium in Harley Street for gentlewomen of
+limited means. Into the saving of this valuable institution Miss
+Nightingale threw all her energy, and for two or three years, hidden
+away from the outside world, she was working day and night for her
+poor suffering ladies, until at length she was able to feel that the
+Sanatorium was not only in good health, but on the high road to
+permanent success.
+
+Florence Nightingale's own health, however, gave way under the
+long-continued strain of anxiety and fatigue; she was obliged to
+leave the invalids for whom she had done so much, and go home for
+the rest and change she so sorely needed.
+
+Now, while Miss Nightingale had been quietly getting "Harley Street"
+into working order, the gravest and most terrible changes had taken
+place in the affairs of the nation, and not only in those of
+England, but in those of the whole of Europe. In 1851, when the
+first Great Exhibition was opened, all was peace--the long peace of
+forty years was still unbroken--people said it never was to be
+broken again, and that wars and rumors of wars had come to an end.
+So much for human foreknowledge. By the autumn of 1854, the horrors
+of the Crimean war had reached their climax. The _Times_ was full,
+day by day, of the most thrilling and appalling descriptions of the
+hideous sufferings of our brave men--sufferings caused quite as much
+by the utter breakdown of the sanitary administration as by even the
+deadly battles and trenchwork; while every post was bringing
+agonizing private letters appealing for help.
+
+Men were wounded in the Crimea, the hospitals were far off at
+Scutari, the wide and stormy Black Sea had to be crossed to reach
+them; the stores of food, clothing, and medicine that might have
+saved many a life were at Varna, or lost in the Black Prince; the
+state of the great Barrack Hospital at Scutari was indescribably
+horrible; everybody was frantic to rush to the relief; no one knew
+what best to do; public feeling was at fever-heat. How could it be
+otherwise when William Howard Russell, the _Times_ correspondent,
+was constantly writing such true but heartrending letters as this:
+
+"The commonest accessories of a hospital are wanting; there is not
+the least attention paid to decency or cleanliness; the stench is
+appalling; the fetid air can barely struggle out to taint the
+atmosphere, save through the chinks in the walls and roofs; and for
+all I can observe, these men die without the least effort being made
+to save them. Here they lie, just as they were let gently down on
+the ground by the poor fellows, their comrades, who brought them on
+their backs from the camp with the greatest tenderness, but who are
+not allowed to remain with them. The sick appear to be tended by the
+sick, and the dying by the dying."
+
+Miss Nightingale, who was then recovering from her Harley Street
+nursing, deeply felt the intensity of the crisis that was moving the
+whole nation; but, whereas the panic had driven most of the kind
+people who were so eager to help the army, nearly "off their heads,"
+it only made hers the cooler and clearer. She wrote, offering her
+services to Mr. Sidney Herbert, afterward Lord Herbert, the minister
+for war, who, together with his wife, had long known her, and had
+recognized her wonderful organizing faculties, and her great
+practical experience.
+
+It was on October 15th that she wrote to Mr. Herbert. On the very
+same day the minister had written to her. Their letters crossed. Mr.
+Herbert, who had himself given much attention to military hospitals,
+laid before Miss Nightingale, in his now historical letter, a plan
+for nursing the sick and wounded at Scutari.
+
+"There is, as far as I know," he wrote, "only one person in England
+capable of organizing and directing such a plan, and I have been
+several times on the point of asking you if you would be disposed to
+make the attempt. That it will be difficult to form a corps of
+nurses, no one knows better than yourself."
+
+After specifying the difficulty in finding not only good nurses, but
+good nurses who would be willing to submit to authority, he goes on:
+"I have this simple question to put to you. Could you go out
+yourself and take charge of everything? It is, of course, understood
+that you will have absolute authority over all the nurses, unlimited
+power to draw on the Government for all you judge necessary to the
+success of your mission; and I think I may assure you of the
+co-operation of the medical staff. Your personal qualities, your
+knowledge, and your authority in administrative affairs, all fit you
+for this position."
+
+Miss Nightingale at once concurred in Mr. Herbert's proposal. The
+materials for a staff of good nurses did not exist, and she had to
+put up with the best that could be gathered on such short notice.
+
+On the 21st, a letter by Mr. Herbert, from the War Office, told the
+world that "Miss Nightingale, accompanied by thirty-four nurses,
+will leave this evening. Miss Nightingale, who has, I believe,
+greater practical experience of hospital administration and
+treatment than any other lady in this country, has, with a
+self-devotion for which I have no words to express my gratitude,
+undertaken this noble but arduous work."
+
+A couple of days later there was a paragraph in the _Times_ from
+Miss Nightingale herself, referring to the gifts for the soldiers
+that had been offered so lavishly: "Miss Nightingale neither invites
+nor refuses the generous offers. Her banking account is open at
+Messrs. Coutts's." On October 30th, the _Times_ republished from the
+_Examiner_ a letter, headed, "Who is Miss Nightingale?" and signed
+"One who has known her." Then was made known to the British public
+for the first time who the woman that had gone to the aid of the
+sick and wounded really was; then it was shown that she was no
+hospital matron, but a young and singularly graceful and
+accomplished gentlewoman of wealth and position, who had, not in a
+moment of national enthusiasm, but as the set purpose of her life
+from girlhood up, devoted herself to the studying of God's great and
+good laws of health, and to trying to apply them to the help of her
+suffering fellow-creatures.
+
+From October 30, 1854, the heroine of the Crimean war was Florence
+Nightingale, and the heroine of that war will she be while the
+English tongue exists and English history is read. The national
+enthusiasm for her was at once intense, and it grew deeper and more
+intense as week by week revealed her powers. "Less talent and energy
+of character, less singleness of purpose and devotion, could never
+have combined the heterogeneous elements which she gathered together
+in one common work and labor of love."
+
+I met the other day a lady who saw something of Miss Nightingale
+just before she went out to the East. This lady tells me that Miss
+Nightingale was then most graceful in appearance, tall and slight,
+very quiet and still. At first sight her earnest face struck one as
+cold; but when she began to speak she grew very animated, and her
+dark eyes shone out with a peculiarly star-like brightness.
+
+This was the woman whose starting for the East was at once felt to
+be the beginning of better things; but so prejudiced were many good
+English people against women-nurses for soldiers, that Mrs. Jameson,
+writing at the time, calls the scheme "an undertaking wholly new to
+our English customs, much at variance with the usual education given
+to women in this country." She, sensible woman, one in advance of
+her day, hoped it would succeed, but hoped rather faintly. "If it
+succeeds," she goes on, "it will be the true, the lasting glory of
+Florence Nightingale and her band of devoted assistants, that they
+have broken down a 'Chinese wall of prejudices,' religious, social,
+professional, and have established a precedent which will, indeed,
+multiply the good to all time."
+
+The little band of nurses crossed the Channel to Boulogne, where
+they found the fisherwomen eager for the honor of carrying their
+luggage to the railway. This display, however, seemed to Miss
+Nightingale to be so out of keeping with the deep gravity of her
+mission, that, at her wish, it was not repeated at any of the
+stopping-places during the route. The Vectis took the nurses across
+the Mediterranean, and a terribly rough passage they had. On
+November 5th, the very day on which the battle of Inkermann was
+fought, the ship arrived at Scutari.
+
+Miss Nightingale and her nurses landed during the afternoon, and it
+was remarked at the time that their neat black dresses formed a
+strong contrast to those of the usual hospital attendants.
+
+The great Barrack Hospital at Scutari, which had been lent to the
+British by the Turkish Government, was an enormous quadrangular
+building, a quarter of a mile each way, with square towers at each
+angle. It stood on the Asiatic shore a hundred feet above the
+Bosphorus. Another large hospital stood near; the whole, at times,
+containing as many as four thousand men. The whole were placed under
+Miss Nightingale's care. The nurses were lodged in the southeast
+tower.
+
+The extent of corridors in the great hospital, story above story, in
+which the sick and wounded were at first laid on wretched
+palliasses, as close together as they could be placed, made her
+inspection and care most difficult. There were two rows of
+mattresses in the corridors, where two persons could hardly pass
+abreast between foot and foot. The mortality, when the _Times_ first
+took up the cause of the sick and wounded, was enormous. In the
+Crimea itself there was not half the mortality in the tents,
+horrible as were the sufferings and privations of the men there.
+
+"The whole of yesterday," writes one of the nurses a few days after
+they had arrived, "one could only forget one's own existence, for it
+was spent, first in sewing the men's mattresses together, and then
+in washing them, and assisting the surgeons, when we could, in
+dressing their ghastly wounds after their five days' confinement on
+board ship, during which space their wounds had not been dressed.
+Hundreds of men with fever, dysentery, and cholera (the wounded were
+the smaller portion) filled the wards in succession, from the
+overcrowded transports."
+
+Miss Nightingale's position was a most difficult one. Everything was
+in disorder, and every official was extremely jealous of
+interference. Miss Nightingale, however, at once impressed upon her
+staff the duty of obeying the doctors' orders, as she did herself.
+An invalids' kitchen was established immediately by her to
+supplement the rations. A laundry was added; the nursing itself,
+was, however, the most difficult and important part of the work.
+
+But it would take far too much space to give all the details of that
+kind but strict administration which brought comparative comfort and
+a low death-rate into the Scutari hospitals. During a year and a
+half the labor of getting the hospitals into working order was
+enormous, but before the peace arrived they were models of what such
+institutions may be.
+
+Speaking of Miss Nightingale in the hospital at Scutari, the _Times_
+correspondent wrote: "Wherever there is disease in its most
+dangerous form, and the hand of the spoiler distressingly nigh,
+there is that incomparable woman sure to be seen; her benignant
+presence is an influence of good comfort even amid the struggles of
+expiring nature. She is a ministering angel, without any
+exaggeration, in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides
+quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow's face softens with
+gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have
+retired for the night, and silence and darkness have settled down
+upon these miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed, alone, with
+a little lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds. With the
+heart of a true woman and the manner of a lady, accomplished and
+refined beyond most of her sex, she combines a surprising calmness
+of judgment and promptitude and decision of character. The popular
+instinct was not mistaken, which, when she set out from England on
+her mission of mercy, hailed her as a heroine; I trust that she may
+not earn her title to a higher, though sadder, appellation. No one
+who has observed her fragile figure and delicate health can avoid
+misgivings lest these should fail."
+
+Public feeling bubbled up into poetry. Even doggerel ballads sung
+about the streets praised
+
+  "The Nightingale of the East,
+   For her heart it means good."
+
+Among many others, Longfellow wrote the charming poem, "The Lady
+with the Lamp," so beautifully illustrated by the statuette of
+Florence Nightingale at St Thomas's Hospital, suggested by the
+well-known incident recorded in a soldier's letter: "She would speak
+to one and another, and nod and smile to many more; but she could
+not do it to all, you know, for we lay there by hundreds; but we
+could kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on our pillows
+again, content."
+
+  "Lo! in that house of misery
+  A lady with a lamp I see
+      Pass through the glimmering gloom.
+      And flit from room to room.
+
+  "And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
+  The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
+      Her shadow as it falls
+      Upon the darkening walls.
+
+  "On England's annals, through the long
+  Hereafter of her speech and song.
+      A light its rays shall cast
+      From portals of the past.
+
+  "A lady with a lamp shall stand
+  In the great history of the land.
+      A noble type of good
+      Heroic womanhood."
+
+In the following spring Miss Nightingale crossed the Black Sea and
+visited Balaclava, where the state of the hospitals in huts was
+extremely distressing, as help of all kinds was even more difficult
+to obtain there than at Scutari. Here Miss Nightingale spent some
+weeks, until she was prostrated by a severe attack of the Crimean
+fever, of which she very nearly died.
+
+But at length the Crimean war came to an end. The nation was
+prepared to welcome its heroine with the most passionate enthusiasm.
+But Florence Nightingale quietly slipped back unnoticed to her
+Derbyshire home, without its being known that she had passed through
+London.
+
+Worn out with ill-health and fatigue, and naturally shrinking from
+publicity, the public at large has scarcely ever seen her; she has
+been a great invalid ever since the war, and for many years hardly
+ever left her house.
+
+But her energy has been untiring. She was one of the founders of the
+Red Cross Society for the relief of the sick and wounded in war.
+When the civil war broke out in America she was consulted as to all
+the details of the military nursing there. "Her name is almost more
+known among us than even in Europe," wrote an American. During the
+Franco-German war she gave advice for the chief hospitals under the
+Crown Princess, the Princess Alice, and others. The Children's
+Hospital, at Lisbon, was erected from her plans. The hospitals in
+Australia, India, and other places have received her care. A large
+proportion of the plans for the building and organization of the
+hospitals erected during the last twenty-five years in England, have
+passed through her hands.
+
+The Queen, who had followed her work with constant interest,
+presented her with a beautiful and costly decoration. The nation
+gave £50,000 to found the Nightingale Home. In this home Miss
+Nightingale takes the deepest interest, constantly having the nurses
+and sisters to visit her, and learning from them the most minute
+details of its working. Great is evidently her rejoicing when one of
+her "Nightingales" proves to be a really fine nurse, such a one, for
+instance, as Agnes Jones, the reformer of workhouse nursing.
+
+This was the high position Florence Nightingale conquered for her
+fellow-women. Hundreds have occupied, and are still occupying, the
+ground she won for them. "And I give a quarter of a century's
+European experience," she goes on, "when I say that the happiest
+people, the fondest of their occupation, the most thankful for their
+lives, are, in my opinion, those engaged in sick nursing."
+
+Officials in high places, ever since the Crimean war, have sent Miss
+Nightingale piles, mountains one might say, of reports and blue
+books for her advice. She seems to be able to condense any number of
+them into half a dozen telling sentences; for instance, the
+mortality in Indian regiments, during times of peace, became
+exceedingly alarming. Reports on the subject were poured in upon
+her. "The men are simply treated like Strasbourg geese," she said in
+effect. "They eat, sleep, frizzle in the sun, and eat and sleep
+again. Treat them reasonably, and they will be well." She has
+written much valuable advice on "How to live and not die in India."
+
+Children's hospitals have also engaged much of her attention. You
+cannot open one of her books at hazard without being struck with
+some shrewd remark, that tells how far-reaching is her observation;
+as in this, on the playgrounds of children's hospitals: "A large
+garden-ground, laid out in sward and grass hillocks, and such ways
+as children like (not too pretty, or the children will be scolded
+for spoiling it), must be provided."
+
+Here, I am sorry to find, my space comes to an end, but not, I hope,
+before I have been able to sketch in some slight way what great
+results will assuredly follow, when Faith and Science are united in
+one person. In the days, which we may hope are now dawning, when
+these gifts will be united, not in an individual here and there, but
+in a large portion of our race, there will doubtless be many a
+devoted woman whose knowledge may equal her practical skill, and her
+love for God and her fellow-creatures, who will understand, even
+more thoroughly than most of us now can (most of us being still so
+ignorant), how deep a debt of gratitude is due to her who first
+opened for women so many paths of duty, and raised nursing from a
+menial employment to the dignity of an "Art of Charity"--to
+England's first great nurse, the wise, beloved, and far-seeing
+heroine of the Crimean war, the Lady of the Lamp, Florence
+Nightingale.
+
+
+
+
+DR. LOUIS PASTEUR[21]
+
+         [Footnote 21: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By Dr. CYRUS EDSON
+
+(1822-1895)
+
+[Illustration: Dr. Louis Pasteur.]
+
+
+Louis Pasteur, the Columbus of "the world of the infinitely
+little"--to quote the phrase of Professor Dumas--was born in the
+town of Dôle, France, on December 27, 1822. His father was an old
+soldier, decorated on the field of battle, who, after leaving the
+array, earned his bread as a tanner. In 1825 M. Pasteur moved from
+Dôle to the town of Arbois, on the borders of the Cuisance, where
+his son began his education in the communal college. The boy was
+exceedingly fond of fishing and of sketching, and it was not until
+he reached the age of fourteen that he began study in earnest. There
+being no professor of philosophy at Arbois, Louis Pasteur moved to
+Besançon, where he received the degree of _bachelier ès lettres_ and
+was at once appointed as one of the tutors. Here he studied the
+course in mathematics necessary for admission into the École
+Normale, in Paris, which he entered in October, 1843. Already his
+passion for chemistry had shown itself, and he took the lectures in
+that science delivered by M. Dumas at the Sorbonne, and by M. Balard
+at the École Normale. It was but a short time before he became a
+marked man in his class, especially for his intense devotion to
+experiment. Thanks to M. Delafosse, one of the lecturers of the
+École Normale, his attention was turned to crystallography, and a
+note from the German chemist, Mitscherlich, communicated to the
+Academy of Sciences, set him on fire with curiosity. Mitscherlich
+declared: "The paratartrate and the tartrate of soda and ammonia
+have the same chemical composition, the same crystalline form, the
+same angles, the same specific weight, the same double refraction,
+and the same inclination of the optic axes. Dissolved in water,
+their refraction is the same. But while the dissolved tartrate
+causes the plane of polarized light to rotate, the paratartrate
+exacts no such action."
+
+Pasteur at once instituted experiments resulting in the discovery of
+minute facets in the tartrate which gave it the power noted. He
+found in the paratartrate these facets existed, but that there was
+an equal admixture of right-and left-handed crystals, and the one
+neutralized the effect of the other. He also discovered the
+left-handed tartrate. These discoveries at the opening of Pasteur's
+career brought him at once to the front among the scientific men. He
+followed them with a profound investigation into the symmetry and
+dissymmetry of atoms, and reached the conclusion that in these lay
+the basic difference between inorganic and organic matter, between
+the absence of life and life.
+
+Nominated at the age of thirty-two as Dean of the Faculté des
+Sciences, at Lille, Pasteur determined to devote a portion of his
+lectures to fermentation. At that time ferments were believed to be,
+to quote Liebig, "Nitrogenous substances--albumin, fibrin, casein;
+or the liquids which embrace them--milk, blood, urine--in a state of
+alteration which they undergo in contact with air." Pasteur examined
+the lactic ferment and found little rods, 1/25000 inch in length,
+which nipped themselves in the centre, divided into two, grew to
+full length and divided again, and these living things he declared
+to be the active principles of the ferment. He made a mixture of
+yeast, chalk, sugar, and water, added some of the rods, and got
+fermentation. He then made a mixture of sugar, water, phosphate of
+potash, and magnesia, and introducing fresh cells, fermentation
+followed. Liebig's theory of the nitrogenous character of the
+ferment disappeared when fermentation was caused in a mixture having
+no nitrogenous elements.
+
+Pasteur had discovered that fermentation was a phenomenon of
+nutrition; it followed the increase and growth of the little rods.
+The next step was the discovery of the ferment of butyric acid, a
+species of vibrio consisting of little rods united in chains of two
+or three and possessed of movement. He found these vibrios lived
+without air. Further experiments showed there were ferments to which
+air was necessary, called by Pasteur the _ærobics_, and others to
+whom oxygen was fatal, the _anærobics_. He proved, also, by an
+exhaustive series of experiments, that what is called putrefaction
+of animal matter is the result of the combined work of the _ærobics_
+and the _anærobics_, which reduce that part not taken up by oxygen
+to dead organic matter, ready in its turn to form food for living
+things.
+
+His attention having been turned to the needs of the vinegar makers
+of Orleans, Pasteur began the examination of the ferment which
+produces vinegar from wine. He found this in the mycoderm aceto, a
+mould-like plant which has the power of developing acetic acid from
+alcohol. As the result of his investigation, the manufacturers of
+vinegar in France were able to do away with the cumbrous process
+they had long followed, and to make vinegar, not only more cheaply,
+but of very much better quality. But during these experiments
+Pasteur found the temperature of 65° C. was sufficient to kill the
+mycoderm. When, then, the wine makers of France appealed to him to
+investigate the "diseases" of wine, he was ready for the work.
+
+Before this, however, he had examined the claims of Pouchet and
+others to their alleged discovery of spontaneous generation; in
+other words, the production of life. Ranging himself against them,
+Pasteur showed their experiments not to have been conclusive, simply
+because they had not succeeded in excluding the dust which contained
+germs of life in the shape of spores of microscopic plants.
+
+The "diseases" of wine produce sour wine, wine that "spirits,"
+"greasy" wine, and bitter wine. Pasteur found each to be due to a
+different microscopic ferment, all of which could be killed by heat.
+He placed bottles of wine in a bath heated to 60° C., and invited
+the most experienced wine tasters of Paris to try them afterward.
+The result of the test was the unanimous verdict that the wines had
+not been injured in the least, and to-day these "diseases" of wine
+are a thing of the past.
+
+There are departments in France where the culture of the silk-worm
+is the principal industry of the inhabitants. In 1849 a strange
+disease, called pebrine, broke out among the worms; they were unable
+to moult and died before the cocoons were spun. It spread in the
+most alarming manner until, from a crop with an average of one
+hundred and thirty million francs a year, the production of silk
+went to less than fifty millions. The silk cultivators sent for
+eggs--seed is the technical name--to Italy and Greece, and for one
+season all went well. The next, the plague was as bad as ever. More
+than that, it spread to Italy, Spain, Greece, and Turkey, until
+Japan was the only silk-producing country where the worm was
+healthy. Societies and governments, as well as individuals, were
+aghast, for the silk industry of the world was on the verge of
+annihilation, and every remedy the mind of man could conceive was
+tried, only to be rejected. In France alone the loss in 1865 was
+over one hundred million francs.
+
+At the suggestion of Professor Dumas, the Government induced Pasteur
+to examine into the "disease." He had seen in a report on the
+epidemic made by M. de Quatrefages, that there were found in the
+diseased worms certain minute corpuscles only to be seen under the
+microscope. When in June, 1865, Pasteur arrived in the town of
+Alais, he found these corpuscles without difficulty. He traced them
+from the worm to the chrysalid, in the cocoon, and thence to the
+moth; he found worms hatched from the eggs laid by these moths
+invariably developed the corpuscles. He crushed a corpuscular moth
+in water, painted a mulberry leaf with it, fed it to a healthy worm,
+and the corpuscles developed. He hatched eggs from moths free from
+corpuscles and secured healthy worms. While working on the
+"disease," Pasteur discovered in 1867 that the mortality among the
+worms was in part due to another disease, the _flacherie_, and this
+he found was the result of imperfect digestion.
+
+[Illustration: Pasteur in his Laboratory.]
+
+_Flacherie_ was contagious, and was caused by the fermentation of the
+food eaten in the body of the worm. The causes of this fermentation,
+the condition of the leaves, the temperature, and others were pointed
+out. As the result of five years' work, Pasteur had restored the silk
+industry to its former position, and had shown that the microscopic
+examination of the moth laying the eggs to be hatched was a perfect
+safeguard against _pebrine_ and _flacherie_.
+
+At the request of the emperor, Pasteur went to the Villa Vicentia,
+in Austria, belonging to the prince imperial. For ten years the silk
+harvest there had not paid the cost of the eggs.
+
+Although he was just recovering from an attack of paralysis brought
+on by overwork, Pasteur travelled to Austria, introduced his methods
+and the sale of the cocoons gave the villa a net profit of
+26,000,000 francs. No wonder it was said of him that his discoveries
+alone exceeded in money value to the French people the war indemnity
+paid by them to the Germans.
+
+Splenic fever, called _charbon_ in France, had for years decimated
+the flocks in France, Italy, Russia, Egypt, Hungary, and Brazil. It
+attacked the horse and cow as well as the sheep, and human beings
+died of it when they developed malignant pustule. Many scientific
+men had studied it, but Dr. Davaine, in 1850, was the first to find
+in the blood of a sheep that had died of the disease, "little
+thread-like bodies about twice the length of a blood-corpuscle.
+These little bodies exhibit no spontaneous motion."
+
+Pasteur began the examination of splenic fever by securing some of
+the blood from an animal dying from it. In the work before him he
+associated with himself M. Joubert, one of his former pupils. A drop
+of the blood sown in the water of yeast--the medium used for
+cultures by Pasteur at that time--produced myriads of the rods, the
+bacilli or microbes. A drop of this taken at the end of twenty-four
+hours, and placed in a fresh flask of the medium, again produced
+thousands of the bacilli. Pasteur found that guinea-pigs inoculated
+from the first flask developed the fever, and the same result
+followed when the inoculation was from the twentieth. He had proved,
+then, that splenic fever was produced by the bacilli, by living
+organisms only to be seen with a powerful microscope.
+
+While working on the bacilli of splenic fever, Pasteur had isolated
+the bacillus of chicken cholera, had cultivated it and had
+inoculated chickens with it, developing the disease. He found that
+so long as the cultures were made from flask to flask within
+twenty-four hours, the virus of the disease, that is, the power of
+the bacilli to produce cholera in the fowls inoculated, remained the
+same and the fowl died. But he discovered that if a flask containing
+the bacilli were left exposed to the air for two weeks, and the
+fowls were then inoculated with bacilli from this flask, they became
+sick, but did not die. Following this up, he inoculated a hen that
+had recovered from a sickness so produced, with the bacilli in their
+strongest and most virulent form, and the hen showed no effect
+whatever. Then he took two hens, one fresh from the coop and the
+other well again after the sickness produced by the inoculation with
+the exposed bacilli, and inoculated both with the blood of a hen
+that was dying of chicken cholera. The first died, the second was
+affected. In other words, Pasteur had made the greatest discovery in
+physiology of this century. He had found it is possible to attenuate
+the virus of a virulent disease, and to use that virus so attenuated
+as a vaccine matter which will guard the animal vaccinated against
+the disease. He had taken Jenner's discovery, and proved it applied
+to other diseases besides small-pox.
+
+Pasteur's theory of the reason why any vaccine matter will have its
+prophylactic effect, is this: He believes there is in the blood of
+any animal subject to a disease caused by bacilli some substance
+which is necessary to the sustenance of those bacilli; and when the
+bacilli, having an attenuated virus, are introduced, they slowly
+consume all of this substance.
+
+The substance being one which nature creates very slowly, no
+subsequent introduction of the bacilli, however virulent, can
+produce the disease until such time shall have elapsed that a new
+supply of the substance shall have been secreted. In this way he
+accounts for the fact that vaccination will protect from small-pox
+for a more or less defined period of time.
+
+Pasteur hastened to apply his discovery of the attenuation of the
+virus of chicken cholera to the virus of splenic fever. Here,
+however, he was met with a serious difficulty. The microbes of
+splenic fever, if left in the flask for forty-eight hours, developed
+bright spots, and gradually into these spots the bacilli themselves
+seemed to be absorbed. Pasteur found these spots were the spores or
+seeds of the microbes, and he also found that, while the bacilli
+could be killed easily in various ways, the spores possessed a much
+greater resistance. They could be dried, for example, and preserved
+in that state indefinitely. It was apparent that the oxygenation
+which attenuated the venom of the bacilli of chicken cholera was
+impossible with those of splenic fever if the bacilli of the latter
+disappeared within a week, leaving the spores behind. But Pasteur
+had discovered before this that, unless the temperature of a fowl
+were lowered artificially, inoculation with the microbes of splenic
+fever would not produce the disease. From this he argued that, as
+the heat of the fowl's body was sufficient to resist the contagion,
+the bacilli themselves must be extremely sensitive to variations in
+temperature. He tried the experiment and found, by lowering the
+temperature of the flasks containing the cultures, he could prevent
+the formation of the spores. He then attenuated the venom of the
+splenic bacilli as he had that of the fowl cholera, tried it on
+guinea-pigs, found they became sick and recovered; inoculated them
+with the bacilli of full strength, but with no result. Pursuing his
+experiments, he discovered that he could by using vaccine-attenuated
+bacilli, of unequal strength, cause any degree of sickness he
+pleased.
+
+In the early part of 1881 Pasteur agreed to hold a public exhibition
+of his vaccine for splenic fever, the animals to be supplied by the
+Society of Agriculture in Melun. The experiment was begun on May
+5th. Pasteur inoculated twenty-four sheep, one goat, and six cows
+with six drops each of attenuated virus, and twelve days afterward
+he reinoculated them with a stronger virus. On May 31st he
+reinoculated the thirty-one animals with the strongest virus of
+splenic fever, and at the same time inoculated twenty-five sheep and
+four cows which had not been vaccinated as were the others. On June
+2d over two hundred people assembled at the farm to see the result.
+The twenty-five sheep that had not been vaccinated all died before
+that evening. The non-vaccinated cows had intense fever and great
+swellings, and could scarcely stand up. On the other hand, the
+vaccinated sheep and cows were in full health and were feeding
+quietly. Pasteur had conquered splenic fever.
+
+Having attenuated the virus of these bacilli, Pasteur began a series
+of experiments to determine whether the attenuated virus could be
+intensified until its former venom was obtained. This he succeeded
+in, and thus discovered what is probably the key to the solution of
+the problem of the periodicity of epidemics of contagious diseases,
+such as cholera. In 1882 Pasteur's attention was called to a new
+disease, swine fever (_rouget_), which was ravaging the herds of
+swine in France. He found the microbes, attenuated them, vaccinated
+the pigs, and secured the most favorable results. He also discovered
+that by passing the microbe of a disease through an animal not
+subject to that disease, he attenuated it so far as its effects on
+another were concerned.
+
+It was in 1880 that Pasteur first began his experiments in
+hydrophobia. Securing the saliva of a child suffering from the
+disease, he inoculated rabbits with it and they died in thirty-six
+hours. He examined the saliva and the blood of the rabbits, and
+found in both a new microbe (a minute disk having two points). He
+established by repeated experiments that hydrophobia is a disease of
+the nerves, that a portion of the medulla oblongata, or of the
+spinal cord, is very much more certain to produce the disease, when
+introduced into the blood or placed on the brain, than is the
+saliva. He succeeded at last in isolating the microbe, in making
+cultures of it, and then attenuating it, and in May, 1884, he
+produced before a commission appointed by the Minister of Public
+Instruction the following results:
+
+Of six dogs unprotected by vaccination, three died as the results of
+bites of a dog violently mad. Of eight unvaccinated dogs, six died
+after extra-venous inoculation of rabic matter. Of five unvaccinated
+dogs, all died after inoculation, by trepanning, of the brain with
+rabic matter. Of twenty-three vaccinated dogs, not one was attacked
+with the disease after inoculation, in any fashion, with the most
+virulent rabic matter procurable.
+
+During his long and busy life Louis Pasteur has been honored after
+every fashion known to men. He has opened the gates of knowledge
+wider than they were ever opened before, and in his discovery of the
+germs of disease, and in his still more wonderful discovery of the
+possibility of attenuating those germs and converting them into
+vaccines, he has revolutionized all ideas of physiology. He is one
+of the greatest pioneers in science that has ever lived, and his
+work will make his name illustrious so long as men shall continue on
+this earth. The lesson of his life is the supreme value of
+experiment; for, as was once said of him by Professor Dumas,
+"Pasteur is never mistaken, because he never asserts anything he
+cannot show another man how to prove."
+
+[Signature: Cyrus Edson.]
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL CHARLES GEORGE GORDON
+
+By Colonel R. H. VEITCH, R.E.
+
+1833-1885
+
+[Illustration: General Charles George Gordon.]
+
+
+Charles George Gordon, known as Chinese Gordon, major-general, C.B.,
+royal engineers, fourth son of Lieutenant-general Henry William
+Gordon, royal artillery, and Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Enderby,
+of Croom's Hill, Blackheath, was born at Woolwich on January 28,
+1833. He was sent to school at Taunton in 1843, and entered the
+Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1848. He obtained a commission
+in the royal engineers on June 23, 1852, and, after the usual course
+of study at Chatham was quartered for a short time at Pembroke Dock.
+In December, 1854, he received his orders for the Crimea, and
+reached Balaklava on January 1, 1855. As a young engineer subaltern
+serving in the trenches, his daring was conspicuous, while his
+special aptitude for obtaining a personal knowledge of the movements
+of the enemy was a matter of common observation among his brother
+officers. He was wounded on June 6, 1855, and was present at the
+attack on the Redan on June 18th. On the surrender of Sebastopol
+Gordon accompanied the expedition to Kinburn, and on his return was
+employed on the demolition of the Sebastopol docks. For his services
+in the Crimea Gordon received the British war medal and clasp, the
+Turkish war medal, and the French Legion of Honor.
+
+In May, 1856, in company with lieutenant (now major-general) E. R.
+James, R.E., he joined Colonel (now General Sir) E. Stanton, R.E.,
+in Bessarabia, as assistant commissioner for the delimitation of the
+new frontier line. This duty was completed in April, 1857, and he
+was then sent with Lieutenant James in a similar capacity to
+Erzeroum, where Colonel (now General Sir) Lintorn Simmons was the
+English commissioner for the Asiatic frontier boundary. The work was
+accomplished by the following October, when Gordon returned to
+England. In the spring of 1858 he and Lieutenant James were sent as
+commissioners to the Armenian frontier to superintend the erection
+of the boundary posts of the line they had previously surveyed. This
+was finished in November, and Gordon returned home, having acquired
+an intimate knowledge of the people of the districts visited.
+
+On April 1, 1859, Gordon was promoted captain, and about the same
+time appointed second adjutant of the corps at Chatham, a post he
+held for little more than a year, for, in the summer of 1860, he
+joined the forces of Sir James Hope Grant, operating with the French
+against China. He overtook the allied army at Tientsin, and was
+present in October at the capture of Pekin and the pillage and
+destruction of the emperor's summer palace. For his services in this
+campaign he received the British war medal with clasp for Pekin and
+a brevet majority in December, 1862. Gordon commanded the royal
+engineers at Tientsin, when the British forces remained there under
+Sir Charles Staveley, and while thus employed made several
+expeditions into the interior, in one of which he explored a
+considerable section of the great wall of China. In April, 1862, he
+was summoned to Shanghai to assist in the operations consequent upon
+the determination of Sir Charles Staveley to keep a radius of thirty
+miles round the city clear of the rebel Taipings. Gordon took part
+as commanding royal engineer, in the storming of Sing-poo and
+several other fortified towns and in clearing the rebels out of
+Kah-ding. He was afterward employed in surveying the country round
+Shanghai.
+
+The Taiping rebellion was of so barbarous a nature that its suppression
+had become necessary in the interest of civilization. A force raised at
+the expense of the Shanghai merchants, and supported by the Chinese
+Government, had been for some years struggling against its prowess. This
+force, known as the "Ever Victorious Army," was defeated at Taitsan,
+February 22, 1863. Li Hung Chang, governor-general of the Kiang
+provinces, then applied to the British commander-in-chief for the
+services of an English officer, and Gordon was authorized to accept the
+command. He arrived at Sung Kiong and entered on his new duties as a
+mandarin and lieutenant-colonel in the Chinese service on March 24,
+1863. His force was composed of some three to four thousand Chinese,
+officered by 150 Europeans of almost every nationality and often of
+doubtful character. By the indomitable will of its commander this
+heterogeneous body was moulded into a little army, whose high-sounding
+title of "Ever Victorious" became a reality, and in less than two years,
+after thirty-three engagements, the power of the Taipings was completely
+broken and the rebellion stamped out. The maintenance of discipline was
+a perpetual struggle, and at one time there was a mutiny which was only
+quelled by shooting the ringleader on the spot. Before the summer of
+1863 was over, Gordon captured Kahpoo, Wokong, and Patachiaow, on the
+south of Soo-chow, the great rebel stronghold, and, sweeping round to
+the north, secured Leeku, Wanti, and Fusaiqwan, so that by October
+Soo-chow was completely invested. On November 29th the outworks were
+captured by assault and the city surrendered on December 6th. Gordon was
+always in front in all these storming parties, carrying no other weapon
+than a little cane. His men called it his "magic wand," regarding it as
+a charm that protected his life and led them on to victory.
+
+When Soo-chow fell, Gordon had stipulated with the governor-general,
+Li, for the lives of the Wangs (rebel leaders). They were
+treacherously murdered by Li's orders. Indignant at this perfidy,
+Gordon refused to serve any longer with Governor Li, and when on
+January 1, 1864, money and rewards were heaped upon him by the
+emperor, declined them all, saying that he received the approbation
+of the emperor with every gratification, but regretted most
+sincerely that, "owing to the circumstances which occurred since the
+capture of Soo-chow, he was unable to receive any mark of his
+majesty the emperor's recognition."
+
+After some months of inaction it became evident that if Gordon did
+not again take the field the Taipings would regain the rescued
+country. On the urgent representations of the British envoy at
+Pekin, Governor Li was compelled to issue a proclamation exonerating
+Gordon from all complicity in the murder of the Wangs. Gordon then
+reluctantly consented to continue his services, on the distinct
+understanding that in any future capitulation he should not be
+interfered with. In December, 1863, a fresh campaign was commenced,
+and during the following months no fewer than seven towns were
+captured or surrendered. In February, 1864, Yesing and Liyang were
+taken, but at Kintang Gordon met with a reverse and was himself
+wounded for the first time. He nevertheless continued to give his
+orders until he had to be carried to his boat. After some other
+mishaps he carried Chan-chu-fu by assault on April 27th. The
+garrison consisted of 20,000 men, of whom 1,500 were killed. This
+victory not only ended the campaign but completely destroyed the
+rebellion, and the Chinese regular forces were enabled to occupy
+Nankin in the July following. The large money present offered to
+Gordon by the emperor was again declined, although he had spent his
+pay promoting the efficiency of his force, so that he wrote home, "I
+shall leave China as poor as when I entered it." The emperor,
+however, bestowed upon him the yellow jacket, and peacock's feather
+of a mandarin of the first class, with the title of Ti-Tu, the
+highest military rank in China, and a gold medal of distinction of
+the first class. The merchants of Shanghai presented him with an
+address expressing their admiration of his conduct of the war.
+
+On his return home, in the beginning of 1865, he was made a C.B.,
+having previously received his brevet as lieutenant-colonel in
+February, 1864. In September, 1865, he was appointed commanding
+royal engineer at Gravesend, and for the next six years carried out
+the ordinary duties of the corps, superintending the construction of
+the forts for the defence of the Thames. During this quiet and
+uneventful period of routine work he devoted his spare time to the
+poor and sick of the neighborhood, stinting himself that he might
+have larger means wherewith to relieve others. He took special
+interest in the infirmary and the ragged schools. He took many of
+the boys from the schools into his own house, starting them in life
+by sending them to sea, and he continued to watch the future
+progress of his kings, as he called them, with never-failing
+sympathy.
+
+In October, 1871, Gordon was appointed British member of the
+international commission at Galatz for the improvement of the
+navigation of the Sulina mouth of the Danube, in accordance with
+the Treaty of Paris. During his tenure of this office he accompanied
+General Sir John Adye to the Crimea to report on the British
+cemeteries there. On his way back to Galatz, in November, 1872, he
+met Nubar Pasha at Constantinople, who sounded him as to his
+succeeding Sir Samuel Baker in the Soudan. The following year Gordon
+visited Cairo on his way home, and on the resignation of Sir Samuel
+Baker was appointed governor of the equatorial provinces of Central
+Africa, with a salary of £10,000 a year. He declined to receive more
+than £2,000.
+
+Gordon went to Egypt in the beginning of 1874, and left Cairo in
+February for Gondokoro, the seat of his government, travelling by
+the Suez-Swakin-Berber route. He reached Khartoum on March 13th,
+stopped only a few days to issue a proclamation and make
+arrangements for men and supplies, then, continuing his journey,
+arrived at Gondokoro on April 16th. The garrison of Gondokoro at
+this time did not dare to move out of the place except in armed
+bands; but in the course of a year the confidence of the natives had
+been gained, the country made safe, eight stations formed and
+garrisoned, the government monopoly of ivory enforced, and
+sufficient money sent to Cairo to pay all the expenses of the
+expedition. At the close of the year, having already lost by
+sickness eight members of his small European staff, Gordon
+transferred the seat of government from the unhealthy station,
+Gondokoro, to Laido. By the end of 1875 Gondokoro and Duffh had been
+joined by a chain of fortified posts, a day's journey apart, the
+slave-dealers had been dispersed, and a letter post organized to
+travel regularly between Cairo and the verge of the Albert Nyanza,
+over two thousand miles as the crow flies.
+
+Gordon had also visited Magungo, Murchison Falls, and Chibero, with
+a view to a further line of fortified posts, and he established for
+the first time, by personal observation, the course of the Victoria
+Nile into Lake Albert. Although he had accomplished a great work
+since his arrival, his efforts to put down the slave trade were
+thwarted by Ismail Pasha Yacoub, governor-general of the Soudan, and
+were likely to prove abortive so long as the Soudan remained a
+distinct government from that of the equatorial provinces. He,
+therefore, at the end of 1876, resigned his appointment and returned
+to England. Strong pressure was put upon him by the khédive to
+return, and on January 31, 1877, he left for Cairo, where he
+received the combined appointment of governor-general of the Soudan,
+Darfour, the equatorial provinces, and the Red Sea littoral, on the
+understanding that his efforts were to be directed to the
+improvement of the means of communication and the absolute
+suppression of the slave trade. Gordon first visited Abyssinia,
+where Walad el Michael was giving a great deal of trouble on the
+Egyptian frontier. He settled the difficulty for a time and
+travelled across country to Khartoum, where he was installed as
+governor-general, May 5th. After a short stay there he hastened to
+Darfour, which was in revolt; with a small force and rapid movements
+he quelled the rising, and, by the humane consideration he showed
+for the suffering people, won their confidence and pacified the
+province. Before this work was completely accomplished his attention
+was called away by the slave-dealers, who, headed by Suleiman, son
+of the notorious Zebehr, with 6,000 armed men, had moved on Dara
+from their stronghold, Shaka. Gordon left Fischer on August 31,
+1877, with a small escort, which he soon outstripped, and in a day
+and a half, having covered eighty-five miles on a camel, entered
+Dara alone, to the surprise of its small garrison. The following
+morning, attended by a small escort, he rode into the rebel camp,
+upbraided Suleiman with his disloyalty, and announced his intention
+to disarm the band and break them up. Gordon's fearless bearing and
+strong will secured his object, and Suleiman returned with his men
+to Shaka.
+
+They rose again; and Gordon's Italian aide, Gessi, after a year's
+marching and fighting, succeeded in capturing Suleiman, and some of
+the chief slave-dealers with him. They were tried as rebels and
+shot. The suppression of the slave trade had thus been practically
+accomplished when on July 1st news arrived of the deposition of
+Ismail and the succession of Tewfik, which determined Gordon to
+resign his appointment. On arriving at Cairo, the khédive induced
+him first to undertake a mission to Abyssinia to prevent, if
+possible, an impending war with that country. Gordon went, saw King
+John, at Debra Tabor, but could arrive at no satisfactory
+understanding with him, and was abruptly dismissed. On his way to
+Kassala he was made prisoner to King John's men and carried to
+Garramudhiri, where he was left to find his way with his little
+party over the snowy mountains to the Red Sea. He reached Massowah
+on December 8, 1879, and on his return to Cairo, the khédive
+accepted his resignation. He arrived in England early in January,
+1880. During his service under the khédive, Gordon received both the
+second-and first-class of the order of the Medjidieh.
+
+His constitution was so much impaired by his sojournings in so
+deadly a climate that his medical advisers sent him to Switzerland
+to recruit. He returned to England, in April, 1880, and in the
+following month accompanied the Marquis of Ripon, the new Viceroy of
+India, to that country as his private secretary. He resigned almost
+immediately, and was invited to China to advise the Chinese
+Government in connection with their then strained relations with
+Russia. Gordon accepted at once, and although difficulties were
+raised by the home authorities, he reached Hongkong on July 2d, and
+went on by Shanghai and Chefoo to Tientsin to meet his old friend,
+Li Hung Chang, who, with Prince Kung, headed the peace party. From
+Tientsin, Gordon went to Pekin, and his wise and disinterested
+counsels in favor of peace at length carried the day.
+
+In 1881 he went to Mauritius as commanding royal engineer, and while
+there was promoted major-general. In 1882, he was at the Cape
+Colony, endeavoring to arrange a peace with the natives of
+Basutoland; but he failed, largely through the treachery of the Cape
+officials.
+
+[Illustration: Gordon attacked by El Mahdi's Arabs.]
+
+The success of the Mahdi in the Soudan and the catastrophe to Hicks
+Pasha, in November, 1883, had induced the British Government, not
+only to decline any military assistance to enable the Egyptian
+Government to hold the Soudan, but to insist upon its abandonment by
+the khédive. To do this it was necessary to bring away the garrisons
+scattered all over the country, and such of the Egyptian
+population as might object to remain. To Gordon was intrusted the
+withdrawal of the garrisons and the evacuation of the Soudan. At
+Cairo his functions were considerably extended. He was appointed,
+with the consent of the British Government, governor-general of the
+Soudan, and was instructed, not only to effect the evacuation of the
+country, but to take steps to leave behind an organized independent
+government.
+
+By the month of March, having succeeded in sending some two thousand
+five hundred people down the Nile into safety, Gordon found himself
+getting hemmed in by the Mahdi and no assistance coming from
+without. On April 16, 1884, his last telegram before the wires were
+cut complained bitterly of the neglect of the Government. The attack
+of Khartoum began on March 12th, and from that time to its fall
+Gordon carried on the defence with consummate skill. His resources
+were small, his troops few, and his European assistants could be
+counted on the fingers of one hand; yet he managed to convert his
+river steamers into iron-clads, to build new ones, to make and lay
+down land mines, to place wire entanglements, and to execute
+frequent sorties, while he kept up the spirits and courage of his
+followers by striking medals in honor of their bravery, and baffled
+a fanatic and determined foe for over ten months, during the latter
+part of which the people who trusted him were perishing from disease
+and famine, and the grip of the enemy was tightening.
+
+In April the necessity of a relief expedition was pressed upon the
+Government at home, but without avail. In May popular feeling found
+vent, not only in public meetings but in the House of Commons, when
+a vote of censure on the Government was lost by only twenty-eight
+votes. Eventually, proposals were made to send a relief expedition
+from Cairo in the autumn, and on August 5th a vote of credit for
+£300,000 was taken for "operations for the relief of General Gordon,
+should it become necessary, and to make certain preparations in
+respect thereof." Even when it was decided that Lord Wolseley should
+take command of a relief expedition up the Nile, hesitation
+continued to mark the proceedings of the Government, and time, so
+valuable on account of the rising of the Nile, was lost. It was
+September 1st before Lord Wolseley was able to leave England. Then
+everything was done, but the delay had been fatal.
+
+In September, 1884, having driven the rebels out of Berber, Gordon
+authorized his companions, Colonel Stewart and Frank Power (_Times_
+correspondent), to go down the river in the steamer Abbas to open
+communication with Dongola. The steamer struck on a rock, and they
+were both treacherously murdered. Gordon was now the only Englishman
+in Khartoum. On December 20th, Lord Wolseley launched Sir Herbert
+Stewart's expedition from Korti across the desert to Metemmeh,
+where, after two severe engagements, it arrived on January 20, 1885,
+under command of Sir Charles Wilson, Stewart having been mortally
+wounded. In order to succor the advancing force, Gordon had deprived
+himself for three months of five out of his seven steamers. These
+five steamers, fully armed, equipped, and provisioned, were in
+waiting, and in them were his diaries and letters up to December
+14th. On that date he wrote to Major Watson, R.E., at Cairo, that
+he thought the game was up, and a catastrophe might be expected in
+ten days' time, and sent his adieux to all. On the same day he wrote
+to his sister: "I am quite happy, thank God, and like Lawrence, I
+have tried to do my duty." His diary ended on the same day with: "I
+have done the best for the honor of my country. Good-by." It was
+necessary for the safety of his troops that Wilson should first make
+a reconnoissance down the river toward Berber before going to
+Khartoum, and when he started up the river, on January 24th, the
+difficulties of navigation were so great that it was midday on the
+28th before the goal was reached, and then only to find it in the
+hands of the Mahdi, Khartoum having fallen early on the 26th, after
+a siege of 317 days.
+
+From the most accurate information since obtained, it appears that
+the garrison, early in January, had been reduced to great straits
+for want of food, and great numbers of the inhabitants had availed
+themselves of Gordon's permission to join the Mahdi. Omdurman,
+opposite to Khartoum, on the west bank of the river, fell about
+January 13th, and about the 18th a sortie was made, in which some
+serious fighting took place. The state of the garrison then grew
+desperate. Gordon continually visited the posts by night as well as
+day, and encouraged the famished garrison. The news of Sir Herbert
+Stewart's expedition, and the successful engagements it had fought
+on the way to Metemmeh, determined the Mahdi to storm Khartoum
+before reinforcements could arrive for its relief. The attack was
+made on the south front at 3.30 a.m., on Monday, January 26, 1885.
+The defence was half-hearted, treachery was at work, and Gordon
+received no tidings of the assault. The rebels made good their
+entrance, and then a general massacre ensued. The accounts of
+Gordon's death are confused and conflicting, but they all agree in
+stating that he was killed near the gate of the palace, and his head
+carried to the Mahdi's camp.
+
+Intelligence of the catastrophe reached England on Thursday,
+February 5th. The outburst of popular grief, not only in this
+country and her colonies, but also among foreign nations, has hardly
+been paralleled. It was universally acknowledged that the world had
+lost a hero. Friday, March 13th, was then observed as a day of
+national mourning, and special services were held in the cathedrals
+and in many churches of the land, those at Westminster Abbey and St.
+Paul's being attended by the royal family, members of both houses of
+parliament, and representatives of the naval and military services.
+Parliament voted a national monument to be placed in Trafalgar
+Square, and a sum of £20,000 to his relatives. More general
+expression was given to the people's admiration of Gordon's
+character by the institution of the "Gordon Boys' Home" for homeless
+and destitute boys. Gordon's sister presented to the town of
+Southampton her brother's library, in March, 1889.
+
+Gordon's character was unique. Simple-minded, modest, and almost
+morbidly retiring, he was fearless and outspoken when occasion
+required. Strong in will and prompt in action, with a naturally hot
+temper, he was yet forgiving to a fault. Somewhat brusque in manner,
+his disposition was singularly sympathetic and attractive, winning
+all hearts. Weakness and suffering at once enlisted his interest.
+Caring nothing for what was said of him, he was indifferent to
+praise or reward, and had a supreme contempt for money. His whole
+being was dominated by a Christian faith, at once so real and so
+earnest that, although his religious views were tinged with
+mysticism, the object of his life was the entire surrender of
+himself to work out whatever he believed to be the will of God.
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER[22]
+
+         [Footnote 22: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS
+
+(1839-1876)
+
+[Illustration: General George A. Custer.]
+
+
+Daring is always popular. The dashing fighter outranks the tactician
+and takes precedence over the engineer when the people's plaudits
+for valor fill the air. To be the _beau sabreur_ of the army, as was
+Murat, in Napoleon's day, and as Custer was in Grant's, is as
+glorious as it is dramatic, as inspiring as it is picturesque. There
+were, in fact, many points of resemblance between these two dashing
+cavalry leaders--Murat, the Frenchman, and Custer, the American.
+Both smelled powder as the aides-de-camp of their chiefs; both rose
+rapidly from grade to grade, and from rank to rank, until they stood
+at the top; both labored at the end under the burden of criticism
+and detraction; and both met their death through a mistake, and fell
+like brave and gallant soldiers.
+
+George Armstrong Custer was born at New Rumley, in the State of
+Ohio, on December 5, 1839. His father was a blacksmith and farmer,
+of German stock, a descendant of a Hessian officer named Küstu--one
+among many who came to conquer and remained to live and die as
+citizens of the land they had failed to subjugate.
+
+Young Custer was educated in the district school of New Rumley, and
+in the academy at Monroe, in Michigan, where he went in 1849 to live
+with his sister Lydia. Returning to Ohio he taught school for a year
+or more in Hopedale, near New Rumley, and in 1857 was able to see
+his boyish dream come true, and, as a lad of seventeen, enter the
+United States Military Academy at West Point.
+
+Cadet Custer graduated from West Point in 1861, and hurried to the
+front at once, eager for service, for the war between the States had
+begun. He was made bearer of despatches by General Scott; he fought
+at Bull Run as lieutenant in the Second United States Cavalry, to
+which he had been assigned; he conducted successfully balloon
+reconnoissance along the Confederate lines, and so inspired General
+McClellan by his energy, courage, and persistence that he was
+appointed aide-de-camp to the general, with the rank of captain.
+
+For his dash and daring in the Rappahannock battles he was advanced
+by speedy promotions to the rank of brigadier-general of volunteers,
+his commission dating from June, 1863, just one year after his
+appointment as aide-de-camp to McClellan. He won his brevet as major
+in the regular army for his brilliant leadership of cavalry at
+Gettysburg; he had a horse shot under him while heading the charge
+at Culpepper, and gained his brevet as lieutenant-colonel of
+regulars for his gallantry in Sheridan's lights about Richmond, in
+the spring of 1864. He won renown and glory in Sheridan's famous
+raid on Richmond, by saving his brigade-colors at the battle of
+Trevillion Station, and, in September, 1864, his dashing valor at
+Winchester procured him his brevet as colonel of regulars and the
+volunteer rank of major-general. He won the battle of Woodstock by a
+wonderful cavalry engagement, routing the enemy, whom he drove for
+twenty-six miles, and capturing all their guns save one. In the
+bloody battle of Cedar Creek he fought at the head of the Third
+Division of Cavalry from start to finish, helping to turn a rout
+into a victory and recapturing all the guns and colors the Union
+troops had lost early in the action, besides taking all the
+Confederate flags and cannon. At Waynesboro, in the spring of 1865,
+still leading the Third Division, he won the day unaided; he
+captured 1,600 prisoners, with all the enemy's camp equipage, guns,
+and colors, and then turning for another onset, Custer drove the
+Confederate General Early from the field, destroying his command,
+scattering his army, and ending the campaign, so far as Early's army
+was concerned. For this brilliant engagement, and for his bravery at
+the battles of Five Forks and Dinwiddie Court-House, on April 1,
+1865, Custer was brevetted brigadier-general in the regular army;
+and, as he had won the first colors taken by the Army of the Potomac
+in 1862, so, in 1865, he received the first flag of truce from Lee's
+army when the end at last came, and was present at the historic
+surrender at Appomattox. Then he secured his last promotion. He was
+brevetted major-general in the regular army and appointed
+major-general of volunteers.
+
+It was a brilliant and exceptional record. He had fought in all the
+battles of the Army of the Potomac save one. He was Sheridan's most
+trusted and favorite cavalry officer. In less than four years he had
+advanced from captain of volunteers to major-general, and from
+lieutenant to major-general in the regular army. He was but
+twenty-six when the war closed, and all his promotions had been won
+by his bravery, his dash, his daring, and his good leadership.
+During the last six months of the war the Third Division of Cavalry,
+led by Custer, captured in open fight over one hundred pieces of
+artillery, sixty-five battle flags, and ten thousand prisoners. It
+was a record of which any soldier might be proud, and it made Custer
+at once the idol of his hard-riding troopers, and one of the popular
+heroes of the day. At the great review in Washington he rode near
+the head of the parade, leading what was popularly called "the most
+gallant cavalry division of the age," greeted with cheers and
+flowers along the line of march.
+
+Custer's active service did not close with the war. He was sent to
+Texas as commander of a cavalry division, and in November, 1865, was
+made chief of cavalry. In February, 1866, he was mustered out of
+service as major-general of volunteers and became again captain in
+the regular army, "on leave." President Johnson denied him the leave
+of absence he asked for to fight under Juarez in Mexico against
+Maximilian, the usurper, and in July, 1866, he received his
+commission as lieutenant-colonel of the newly formed Seventh
+Cavalry, United States Army--the regiment that he made into Indian
+fighters and served with until the end. In November, 1866, he joined
+his regiment at Fort Riley, and was soon fighting Indians on the
+plains. He utterly defeated the hostile Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and
+Kiowas at the battle of the Washita, in the Indian Territory, in
+November, 1871; he was on post duty in Kentucky until 1873, and then
+again on the plains, where, on August 4, 1873, he whipped the
+hostile Sioux at the battle of Tongue River, in the Yellowstone
+country, and again, on the 11th of the same month, at the battle of
+the Big Horn. In the summer of 1874 he led an expedition of
+exploration and discovery into the Black Hills, in the Dakota
+country, and in May, 1876, led his regiment in what proved to be his
+last campaign, a march against the hostile Sioux in the unexplored
+region of the Little Big Horn. Here, with less than three hundred
+men, he faced the confederated Sioux, numbering thousands of
+warriors, and in a desperate and characteristic engagement closed
+the record of a life of brilliant effort and daring by standing at
+bay, against the tremendous odds of ten to one, until he and his
+entire command fell to a man, fighting desperately to the end.
+
+Custer was gallant, but sometimes indiscreet; he was daring, but
+often careless of consequences; and when in positions of command he
+was apt to be impatient of cowardice and of greed. So he raised up
+enemies for himself, and twice these enemies sought and nearly
+accomplished his downfall. His last campaign was fought under the
+burden of an apparent official censure, galling to a man of Custer's
+impetuous nature, all the more so as he knew it to be unmerited and
+unjust. There is little doubt that this weight of wrong engendered a
+spirit of recklessness, foreign even to his daring nature, and led
+him to take risks he would not otherwise have accepted, simply
+because he felt the necessity for action and believed that through
+valor would come his speediest vindication. Had he been supported by
+those he relied upon he might, even in the face of the overpowering
+odds marshalled against him, have come off victorious, instead of
+dying, an unnecessary sacrifice, like another Roland, and, if we
+accept the legends, at just Roland's age. It is because that tragic
+ending of a valiant life was, viewed from the picturesque
+stand-point, its logical and dramatic conclusion, that American
+tradition and popular applause will, in the years to come, remember
+Custer, not so much for the dash at Winchester, the daring at
+Waynesboro, or the valor at Five Forks, as for his immortal last
+stand on the banks of the Little Big Horn, when he and his brave
+troopers went down in death together.
+
+General Custer was the born soldier in face and figure. Lithe,
+broad-shouldered, and sinewy in frame, nearly six feet in height,
+blue-eyed and golden-haired, he was the beau ideal cavalry
+leader--alert, active, ready, and responsive, with an eye to all
+details, a love for the picturesque in bearing and equipment, of
+great endurance, abstemious, healthy, and strong, and as much at
+home in the saddle and with the sabre as in his own little house in
+Monroe or by his blazing camp-fire. He married, in February, 1864,
+Elizabeth Bacon, a daughter of Judge Daniel S. Bacon, of Monroe. For
+ten years his wife was his constant companion in camp and in
+frontier service, and she has written many sketches of his active
+life in the saddle and his characteristics as soldier and as man.
+
+General Custer, at the time of his death, was engaged on a series of
+"War Memoirs," and his articles on frontier life and army experiences
+found ready acceptance and wide favor. He was, undoubtedly, America's
+best cavalry leader, and won a place as "a perfect general of horse"
+beside the world's dashing war-riders--from Hannibal's "Thunderbolt,"
+Mago the Carthaginian, to Maurice of Nassau and the "Golden Eagle,"
+Murat the Frenchman.
+
+Fourteen of the thirty-seven years he lived were spent in actual
+service in the camp or on the battle-field. He was a brigadier-general
+at twenty-three and a major-general at twenty-five. In the height of
+his popularity and his phenomenal success as a cavalry leader, he was
+a picturesque and familiar figure to friend and foe alike, as in his
+broad cavalier's hat, his gold-bedizened jacket, and high cavalry
+boots, with his long hair streaming in the wind, he would ride like a
+tornado, to the accompaniment of "Garry Owen," his favorite
+battle-air, carrying all before him--a subject worthy the pencil of a
+Vandyke, the very type of the dashing trooper of romance. But that
+there was a method in his dash and a practical element in his daring,
+even the generals he outranked and the civilians who tried to direct
+him would admit, and to be the choice of McClellan and the favorite of
+Sheridan gave the assurance of worth to his leadership and of value to
+his valor.
+
+In 1877 Custer's remains were removed to the graveyard at West Point
+from the battle-field of the Little Big Horn, where he had first
+been buried amid the fallen heroes of his own brave band. In 1879
+the Government made the battle-ground where Custer met his death a
+national cemetery, and raised a monument, upon which appeared the
+names and rank of all those who fell in that needless and fatal, but
+heroic, fight.
+
+[Signature: Elbridge S. Brooks.]
+
+[Illustration: Custer's Last Fight.]
+
+
+
+
+HENRY M. STANLEY[23]
+
+         [Footnote 23: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess]
+
+By NOAH BROOKS
+
+(Born 1841)
+
+[Illustration: Henry M. Stanley.]
+
+
+Two white men, one from America and the other from England, met in
+the heart of Equatorial Africa, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika,
+November 10, 1871. This was their first meeting. The Englishman had
+been lost to the outside world for more than two years, and the
+American had been looking for him since the early part of 1871.
+Finally, after many great difficulties and perils, the American
+found the lost explorer, surrounded by his black guards, friends,
+and companions. They had dimly heard of each other through the vague
+rumors of the natives for months past, and now meeting face to face,
+the American lifting his cap, said, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume."
+The Englishman nodded an affirmative reply, and the other said, "I
+am Henry M. Stanley."
+
+It was in this simple yet dramatic way that two of the most famous
+African travellers of modern times met in the heart of the Dark
+Continent. Quite as dramatic, perhaps, was the departure of Stanley
+in pursuit of Livingstone. Stanley was not widely known previous to
+his expedition to Africa in search of Livingstone. He had served as
+a war correspondent of one of the great New York newspapers for
+several years, and was known to his craft as a faithful, accurate,
+and courageous newspaper correspondent. He had dared many dangers,
+and had encountered and overcome obstacles that would have dismayed
+a less intrepid soul. In 1868 he served the _New York Herald_ as
+correspondent during the war in Abyssinia which raged between the
+British and King Theodore. It was here he got his first taste of
+African adventure. It was not a long war. The British shut up King
+Theodore in the fortress of Magdala, where he perished miserably by
+his own hand in the flames of his burning citadel. Thence Stanley
+went to Spain, where a great civil war had broken out, and he
+witnessed the sacking of cities, the prosecution of sieges, and
+battles large and small innumerable.
+
+This war over, in the autumn of 1869, the civilized world was
+wondering whether Dr. Livingstone, the African missionary and
+explorer, were dead or alive. Dr. Livingstone, who was of Scottish
+birth and was in the service of the London Missionary Society, had
+been long laboring in South Africa, a country of which the outer
+world then knew but very little. Along the coast here and there were
+points occupied temporarily by white traders and travellers, but the
+interior of the Dark Continent was known only through the tales of
+the slave-catchers, who brought to the coast the black people they
+had gathered like so many cattle in the interior. Dr. Livingstone
+was doing what he could to spread the light of the Christian
+religion through those benighted regions. His first departure into
+the interior of Africa was from Cape Town, in 1840, and for more
+than thirty-three years he spent his life in the arduous work to
+which he had consecrated himself. In 1858 he had returned to England
+and published a book, giving an account of his missionary labors and
+his discoveries, and, liberally provided with means, he returned to
+Africa to carry on his work. He was accompanied by his wife, who
+died in the interior of Africa in 1862. In 1863 he returned to
+England and published a second book, giving some further account of
+his explorations.
+
+Again, in 1865, he returned to Africa, and for more than a year no
+word came from him, but there ran a rumor that he had been killed by
+the savages. Early in 1869, however, letters from Dr. Livingstone,
+written a year before, were received on the coast, showing that he
+was alive and well. He had travelled many thousands of miles, being
+the first white man that had ever penetrated those dark and
+mysterious regions in the heart of Africa. But now, in the autumn of
+1869, more than twenty months had passed since any word of his had
+come out of the darkness, and the world was ready to believe that
+the faithful missionary and explorer had dared his fate too often,
+and had died in the jungles of Africa.
+
+It was at this time that Stanley, resting after a long and arduous
+campaign in Spain, received from James Gordon Bennett, who was then
+in Paris, a telegram summoning him to an interview in that city.
+Arriving at the French capital early in the morning, Stanley went
+straight to Mr. Bennett's lodgings, before that gentleman had risen
+from his bed. In answer to his knock a voice commanded him to enter.
+The two men had not met in many years. Stanley was bronzed and aged
+by sun and storm, and Bennett, surprised, abruptly asked, "Who are
+you?"
+
+"I am Stanley, and I have come to answer your message," was the
+reply.
+
+Bennett motioned Stanley to a seat, and after a moment's pause,
+asked:
+
+"Will you go to Africa and find Livingstone?"
+
+Stanley was startled. For a moment he reflected; then he replied, "I
+will;" and before he left the room his agreement with Bennett was
+practically concluded, and some of the larger details of the
+expedition were mapped out, and Stanley left the hotel clothed with
+a commission to find Livingstone, and promised all needed funds for
+expenses and for the relief of the great African explorer, should he
+be in need, as it was expected he would be found, if at all.
+
+Stanley first went to the east coast of Africa, where he arrived in
+the early part of 1871. Months were consumed at Zanzibar in making
+ready the expedition with which he was to penetrate into the
+interior. Several caravans or trains were despatched, one after the
+other, loaded with ammunition, arms, provisions, and the necessaries
+of life, and with a large supply of goods with which to purchase a
+right of way through hostile or unfriendly kingdoms and states.
+
+Bringing up the rear of these various trains, Stanley and his armed
+force left the coast of Africa, March 21, 1871. He had with him 192
+persons, negroes and Arabs, and as he launched out into the
+untravelled places of Africa, two words rang in his ears, "Find
+Livingstone." Enduring many hardships, sometimes fighting and
+sometimes coaxing the natives, Stanley pressed on his way, his
+general course being in a northwesterly direction, signs, rumors,
+and perhaps instincts, leading him to believe that Livingstone, if
+found alive, would be discovered somewhere in the region of Lake
+Tanganyika. It would be impossible to describe the vagueness and
+mysteriousness of the rumors which float to and fro in an
+untravelled and savage country, but as the intrepid adventurer
+pressed on he heard more and more credible reports of the lost white
+man. His first convincing intimation of his being near Livingstone
+was when a black met him, and, speaking to him in tolerably good
+English, told him that a white man was said to be in a village near
+by. This man was one of Dr. Livingstone's servants, and soon the
+two, one from America and the other from England, met at Ujiji, on
+the shores of the lake.
+
+Stanley remained with Livingstone until March 14th of the following
+year, busied with explorations of the fascinating region into which
+he had penetrated. He supplied Livingstone with all of the goods
+that he could spare, and on his return to Zanzibar he sent him a
+caravan with men, supplies, and such articles as he needed,
+fulfilling the orders of Mr. Bennett. Stanley never again saw
+Livingstone in life.
+
+Livingstone died of malarial fever contracted in the African
+marshes, and his faithful blacks embalmed his body and carried it to
+the coast, hundreds of miles, bringing with them every article
+belonging to the faithful missionary, even to the smallest scraps of
+paper on which were penned the last notes of his journey which he
+ever wrote. Livingstone was buried with grand ceremony in
+Westminster Abbey, and Stanley was one of those who bore him to his
+grave.
+
+Stanley's early life was a romance. He was born in Wales, near the
+little town of Denbigh, and his parents were so poor that when he
+was about three years of age he was sent to the poor-house of St.
+Asaph to be brought up and educated at the expense of the parish. At
+the age of thirteen he was his own master, and though young, he was
+ambitious, well informed, and well poised. He taught school while
+yet a lad in the village of Mold, Flintshire, North Wales. Tiring
+of this uncongenial occupation, he made his way to Liverpool when he
+was about fourteen years of age, and shipped as cabin-boy on board a
+sailing vessel bound to New Orleans. Like other British-born youths,
+America was to him the promised land, and thither he turned his
+steps in pursuit of fortune and fame. In New Orleans he fell in with
+a kindly merchant, a Mr. Stanley, who adopted him and gave him his
+name, for the youngster's real name was John Rowlands. His protector
+dying without leaving a will, the boy was once more turned adrift,
+but he managed to live and sustain himself, and when twenty-one
+years of age, in 1861, the great Civil War having broken out,
+Stanley went into the Confederate service then recruiting at New
+Orleans. He was subsequently taken prisoner by the Federal forces,
+and being allowed his liberty, he volunteered in the United States
+Navy. He did his work well, and was in due time promoted to be
+acting ensign on the iron-clad Ticonderoga. He made friends wherever
+he went, for he was brave, modest, and of a frank disposition. The
+war over he was discharged from the naval service, went to Asia
+Minor, where he saw many strange countries, wrote letters to the
+American newspapers, and in 1866 revisited his native village in
+Wales. Returning to the United States, he entered the service of the
+_New York Herald_, and went to Abyssinia as war correspondent, as
+before stated.
+
+Stanley returned to Europe after his discovery of Livingstone, in
+July, 1872, and published his narrative, but many people in Europe
+and in America refused to believe his story. Some persons who
+thought themselves expert in knowledge of African travel proved to
+their entire satisfaction that he never had been far from the coast,
+never had seen Livingstone, and that his wonderful tale was a tissue
+of romance. The Queen of England showed her belief and confidence in
+him by sending him a box of gold set with jewels, and the Royal
+Geographical Society of Great Britain, a very high and mighty body,
+showed him great honor.
+
+The attention of geographers and scientific men was now turned to
+the great Lake Tanganyika, about which very little was known. The
+outlet of the lake was as yet undiscovered. The secret sources of
+the Nile were unknown, and the great river that reaches the Congo
+coast from the interior was then, so far as men knew, lost in the
+foam of the cataracts above. Even the already famous lake known as
+the Victoria Nyanza was indistinctly sketched on the maps, and
+people familiar with African exploration were uncertain whether that
+great body of water was a lake or a chain of lakes.
+
+Stanley was asked by the editor of the _London Daily Telegraph_ if
+he could settle these great questions if he were commissioned to go
+to Africa. He replied, "While I live there will be something done.
+If I survive the time required to perform all the work, all shall be
+done." James Gordon Bennett was asked by cable if he would join in
+the new expedition. His sententious reply flashed under the ocean
+was: "Yes. Bennett." And Stanley's second great work was already
+determined upon.
+
+Only six weeks were allowed for preparation, and when it was noised
+abroad that Stanley was taking another expedition into the heart of
+Africa, he was overwhelmed with offers of volunteer assistants, and
+with a great variety of strange contrivances to help him on his
+journey. Finally, all preparations being concluded, he left England
+August 15, 1874, accompanied by only three white men, Frank and
+Edward Pocock and Frederick Barker. These men, with the goods and
+other needed articles for the expedition, were sent on ahead, and
+twenty months after his last previous departure from Zanzibar,
+Stanley was once more at that point of departure, ready to begin his
+preparations for another plunge into the heart of the Dark
+Continent.
+
+Some of the black men who had been with him on his previous journey,
+when he searched for Livingstone, were found at Zanzibar, and they
+were all eager to go with him again, and when he was ready to depart
+he had in his company 224 persons, some of the black men taking
+their wives with them. The company after leaving Zanzibar landed at
+Bergamoyo, on the mainland, November 13, 1874, and five days later
+his column boldly advanced into the heart of the Dark Continent. The
+general direction of the expedition was at first nearly westerly,
+then turning to the north it was aimed for Victoria Nyanza. The
+march was obstructed by marshy regions, overflowing with recent
+rains. Moist exhalations and poisonous vapors prevailed, and the
+first month was a gloomy one. Stanley's own weight in thirty-eight
+days fell from 180 pounds to 130 pounds, and the three young
+Englishmen with him were greatly reduced in strength and flesh. One
+of these, Edward Pocock, was prostrated, and though he was carried
+back to the high, dry table land nearer the coast, he died and was
+buried in that lonely region.
+
+By January 21, 1875, 20 of the black men of the expedition had died,
+many were sick and disabled, and 89, discouraged by their
+misfortunes, deserted. They were now in a hostile region, and were
+attacked by natives day after day in succession, but after much hard
+fighting they got away and labored onward toward the Victoria
+Nyanza, which they reached on January 27th, near its southern shore.
+This event was celebrated with great joy and cheerfulness; they felt
+that they were out of the wilderness. Six weeks were now consumed in
+a voyage around Victoria Nyanza.
+
+During the absence of the exploring party, Frederick Barker, who had
+been left in the camp on the lake, died of fever, leaving Pocock and
+Stanley the only white men in the party. It was here that Stanley
+met King Mtesa, the King of Uganda, a benevolent and mild-mannered
+Pagan, who had previously been converted to Mohammedanism, and now
+accepted the Christian religion with equal cheerfulness and
+good-nature.
+
+On his way westward Stanley passed through the regions of King
+Rumanika, an eccentric character, at whose court the white man heard
+many strange stories of unknown regions in the heart of the
+continent. From this point Stanley went southwardly to explore that
+part of Lake Tanganyika which lies south, and this he found to be
+three hundred and twenty miles long, averaging a width of
+twenty-eight miles. It has no known outlet, and a sounding line of
+two hundred and eighty feet found no bottom.
+
+His next march from Tanganyika to the River Lualaba was toilsome and
+perilous and beset with dangers almost incredible. At Nyangwe
+Stanley touched the most distant point in Central Africa ever
+reached before by white man. Here he met with Tippoo Tib, the famous
+Arab trader. This man, who has always seemed to be master of the
+destinies and fortunes of the wild, roving tribes in the interior,
+agreed to accompany Stanley on his exploration of the Lualaba or
+Great River. If it had not been for this agreement with Tippoo Tib,
+it is most likely that Stanley's expedition would have ended then
+and there, and we never should have known, as we now know, that the
+Congo and the Lualaba are one river, the second largest in the
+world. Its line extends from its month on the west coast of Africa
+more than half-way across the continent, and it has its rise in the
+great lakes of the interior. To this vast stream Stanley has given
+the name of Livingstone.
+
+The object of Stanley's journey now was to throw light on the
+western half of the continent, which was then represented on the
+maps by a blank, through which meandered a few vague and uncertain
+lines representing rivers, guessed at but not known. Stanley got on
+better with the natives than did any of those who had gone before
+him, for he was wise, patient, and gentle, and yet so firm and
+decided that he was held in great awe and respect by the black men
+wherever he was known. Leaving the river and deflecting to the
+westward, he struggled on through a forest matted and interlaced
+with vines, swarming with creeping things, damp and reeking with
+vapors, and dripping with moisture. It was a most intolerable and
+horrid stage of the journey. When again he struck the great river he
+resolved to go by land no further. Here he was abandoned by Tippoo
+Tib, who refused to go on. Stanley resolutely set himself to work
+building and buying canoes, and led by his own English-built boat,
+the Lady Alice, his expedition started finally down the river, which
+here flows due north. The fleet was twenty-three in number, and was
+loaded with stores, goods, and supplies.
+
+[Illustration: Stanley shooting the Rapids of the Congo.]
+
+It was a wonderful voyage. The explorers were harassed at times by
+savage tribes, some of them believed to be cannibals, who attacked
+the strangers from shore, or in pure wantonness, as they drifted
+down the stream. Sickness and hunger were often their lot, and they
+were overtaken by tropical storms. In some places, too, they
+encountered rapids and cataracts, around which their fleet had to be
+dragged through paths cut in the primeval forest while the savages
+hovered around them. The forests were populous with wild beasts;
+chimpanzees and gorillas, monkeys, and all manner of four-footed
+things infested the clambering vines that festooned the trees. They
+were once attacked by an hippopotamus, and elephants and
+rhinoceroses were never far away. At a point below where the great
+river turns from its great northerly course and flows westward, just
+above the equator, was discovered a series of cataracts, seven in
+all, the first of which was named Livingstone Falls and the seventh
+Stanley Falls. The natives from this point downward to the mouth of
+the Congo had lost something of their natural ferocity, as they had
+been tamed by trade from the west coast, and great was the rejoicing
+of Stanley's Zanzibar men when they encountered native warriors with
+firearms in their hands, for this showed that they had reached a
+people supplied by traders from the Congo coast.
+
+The passing of the last group of cataracts was attended by numerous
+dangers. In spite of all their efforts, canoes were sometimes
+carried over the falls and wrecked, and on June 3d, Frank Pocock,
+the last of Stanley's white companions, was drowned in the Congo by
+the upsetting of a boat. Pocock was a brave, faithful, and devoted
+follower of Stanley, who has paid a touching tribute to the
+manliness, affection, and courage of the young Englishman who lies
+buried in the savage wilderness of the Congo.
+
+Very soon, as they drew nearer to the west coast, in the latter part
+of the summer of 1877, sickness, distress, and famine pressed hard
+upon the way-worn travellers. They were destitute of nearly
+everything that could sustain nature. The natives refused to sell
+supplies, and starvation stared them in the face. Knowing that a
+trading-post was established at Embomma, a two days' journey down
+the river, Stanley wrote on an old piece of cotton cloth a letter
+asking for help, which was sent to the trading-post by his swiftest
+runners. This letter was written in Spanish, French, and also in
+English, Stanley in his anxiety and despair leaving no means untried
+to reach the unknown traders whom he heard were at Embomma. The men
+into whose hands this three-fold message fell were English and
+Portuguese. Their response was prompt and generous. The messengers
+were sent back, followed by a small caravan laden with ample
+supplies of food and the necessaries of life, greatly to the relief
+of the starving people who, on the arrival of this timely aid, had
+eaten nothing for thirty hours. On August 9, 1877, the nine hundred
+and ninety-ninth day from the date of their departure from Zanzibar,
+Stanley's company, now numbering one hundred and fourteen blacks and
+one white man, met the generous traders and merchants of Embomma,
+who received the way-worn voyagers that had crossed the Dark
+Continent. From the mouth of the Congo the expedition was carried by
+steamer to Kabinda, a seaport a short distance up the coast, whence
+they were taken to the port of San Paolo de Loanda, where they
+embarked on board a British man-of-war and were taken to Cape Town;
+thence, touching at Port Natal, they steamed to Zanzibar, where they
+arrived on November 20, 1877. Long since given up for dead, the
+Zanzibar men were greeted by their kindred with signs of
+thanksgiving, tears and cries of joy. They had crossed the heart of
+the continent, doubled the great Cape, and were again at home.
+
+Stanley returned to England from Zanzibar, arriving in December,
+1877. The King of the Belgians had been planning an expedition to
+open up the Congo country to trade, and now requested Stanley to
+take command of his expedition. Stanley undertook the management of
+the new organization and returned to Africa in 1879, where he
+remained nearly six years, hard at work on the Congo, making roads,
+establishing stations, and opening the way for commerce. The Congo
+Free State, founded by King Leopold, lies chiefly south of the great
+bend of the river, and contains an area of 1,508,000 square miles,
+with a population of more than 42,000,000. The articles collected
+from the African trade at points along the great river, are ivory,
+palm-oil, gum, copal, rubber, bees-wax, cabinet woods, hippopotamus
+teeth and hides, monkey skins, and divers other things. Stanley now
+made brief visits to Europe and the United States. While he was in
+this country, in the winter of 1886 and 1887, he was summoned back
+to Europe to take once more command of an African expedition to
+rescue Emin Pasha, governor of the province of Equatorial Africa.
+Emin is the Egyptian name of Dr. Schnitzler. He has been generally
+known throughout Africa as Emin Pasha, and was governor of the
+province which is one of the outlying posts of the Egyptian
+government, when the revolt in the Soudan took place. When General
+Gordon was besieged in Khartoum, the province of Emin Pasha was cut
+off from the rest of Egypt, and Emin was shut up in the region north
+of the Albert Nyanza, whose capital is Lado, on one of the minor
+branches of the White Nile.
+
+To relieve him in his isolation and necessity, a subscription was
+started in England, and once more, equipped with men, arms,
+ammunition, and other supplies, Stanley sailed for Africa in
+January, 1887, making his head-quarters as before at Zanzibar. The
+supplies for the expedition were shipped directly to the Congo and
+carried up stream by steamers. At Zanzibar, Stanley's old friend
+Tippoo Tib was met, and he signed an agreement making him Governor
+of Stanley Falls to defend that post against all comers, a salary
+being guaranteed him. Then, accompanied by Tippoo Tib, Stanley went
+to the mouth of the Congo by the way of the Cape of Good Hope,
+reaching the river March 18, 1887; then, ascending the stream on
+which he had met so many hardships and endured so much suffering, he
+carried his force of nearly one thousand men, and his supplies,
+arms, and ammunition, to the relief of Emin Pasha, an enormous
+quantity altogether. The white companions of Stanley on this
+expedition were Major Barttelot, who had served with distinction
+under General Wolseley in Egypt, Major Sir Andrew Clarke, Lieutenant
+Stairs, Captain Nelson, Dr. Park, Rose Troup, Mountjoy Jephson,
+William Bonny, and Mr. Jameson. Of these, two returned to England
+before the termination of the journey, and three perished during the
+wanderings of the expedition through forty-five hundred miles of
+trackless wilderness, pestilential marshes, and regions populous
+with hostile savages. From June, 1887, to December, 1889, the party
+was lost to the world and no definite news from it reached
+civilization.
+
+The expedition, which had been divided into two parts, generally
+pursued its way in a northeastward course. Major Barttelot was left
+on the Aruwimi, at Yambuya, with 257 men and the main part of the
+stores, to await the coming of the promised reinforcements from
+Tippoo Tib. A long delay ensued, and troubles broke out in
+consequence (it is said) of the rash and imperious demeanor of Major
+Barttelot, and finally Barttelot was murdered and the entire
+rear-guard was broken down by desertion and pillage. Jameson
+collected the remains of the party, but he soon after died, and Mr.
+Bonny succeeded to the command and collected and kept the men
+together. Meanwhile, Stanley's march ahead was made with many
+difficulties, and he encountered rapid streams and other obstacles
+unforeseen and unexpected. Toward the end of December, 1887,
+Stanley's expedition having reached the Albert Edward Nyanza, and
+still being unable to open communications with Emin Pasha, it was
+decided to return to the forest and build a fort, and, after resting
+the forces, make a new start toward the lake. This fortification,
+known as Fort Bodo, was inhabited until April, 1888, when Stanley
+pressed on, and finally found Emin Pasha and his companion, Dr.
+Casati. They had passed through the country of the dwarfs, nearly
+perishing with hunger, and when they reached the lake, Emin's
+soldiers had mutinied and he was a prisoner. Emissaries from the
+Mahdist Dervishes had stirred up the camp of Emin and caused
+inextricable confusion. Emin was reluctant to leave the province,
+and when Stanley and his white companions determined to attempt to
+reach Zanzibar by an unexplored route, Emin refused to depart. Four
+months were spent in an effort to overcome the reluctance of Emin
+Pasha and Captain Casati, who were unwilling to leave their people.
+
+Emin's plea was that ten thousand of his people would have to be
+extricated from the province and carried to the coast. After many
+and exasperating discussions, Stanley refused to wait longer, and
+Emin, who had become nearly blind, brought away with him about five
+hundred persons. The expedition then, over a southeasterly route,
+made its way toward the coast.
+
+The course of march from Albert Edward Nyanza was nearly in a direct
+line to the Uzinja country, on the southwest shore of the Victoria
+Nyanza. The party passed south of Victoria Lake and reached the east
+coast December 4, 1889. The caravan, since it left Albert Edward
+Nyanza, had dwindled from fifteen hundred to one-half that number.
+This latest journey of Stanley lasted one thousand and twelve days,
+of which hardly twenty were without tragical and perilous incidents.
+The story of the annihilation that overcame his rear-guard has been
+often told. It will probably never be settled exactly where shall be
+placed the blame for that frightful disaster.
+
+On his return from the Emin relief expedition, Stanley revisited the
+United States, accompanied by his bride whom he had lately married.
+He gave lectures in several of the larger cities of the country on
+his surprising adventures in Africa. He was now prematurely aged by
+his terrible experiences, and though his eye was still bright and
+his frame alert, care and privation had whitened his hair, exposure
+had darkened his skin and left its wrinkled impress on his forehead.
+Everywhere he was received with the greatest enthusiasm and followed
+by eager thousands, who gazed upon his face and hung with rapture on
+his words. In 1892 he returned to England, and availing himself of
+his British nationality, stood for Parliament in the District of
+Lambeth, City of London, as a Conservative candidate. Much to the
+surprise and grief of his friends he was defeated and since then he
+has remained in private life.
+
+[Signature: Noah Brooks.]
+
+
+
+
+THOMAS ALVA EDISON[24]
+
+         [Footnote 24: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By CLARENCE COOK
+
+(Born 1847)
+
+[Illustration: Thomas Alva Edison.]
+
+
+As someone has called Leonardo da Vinci "the great Italian Yankee,"
+because of his multifarious and ingenious suggestions in the world
+of material things, so our own Edison may be called "the Yankee
+Leonardo," for, with a curiosity ranging over the whole world of
+nature, equal to that of the Italian, and with a fecundity of
+invention no less bewildering, he unites, like Leonardo, an
+imaginative and poetical vein that lifts his devices into the domain
+of Art.
+
+Yet Edison is in no respect a graceful or romantic figure such as
+Leonardo was. He reminds us rather, by the weird and cosmic nature
+of his speculations and inventions, of some one of the beings
+created by the Norse mythologists: a nineteenth century gnome,
+rough, shaggy, uncouth, wholly absorbed in his search among the
+secrets of nature, and, while working always for the good of
+mankind, dwelling in a world apart, and with neither time nor
+inclination to mix in human affairs.
+
+Thomas Alva Edison was born at Milan, Erie County, O., February 11,
+1847. He started in life hampered by poverty, by want of teaching
+and training, without friends outside his own home circle to
+encourage him in pushing his fortunes, and with small opportunity,
+in the little village where his lot had been cast, for bettering his
+condition. On his father's side he came of sturdy Dutch stock: the
+old man, who was still living in 1879 at the age of seventy-four,
+reckoned among his immediate ancestors one who lived to be one
+hundred and two years old, and another who reached one hundred and
+three. He would appear to have been, like pioneers in general,
+ready, if not obliged, to turn his hand to any employment that might
+yield a living, that must be scanty at the best; and we read of him
+as in turn a tailor, a nurseryman, a dealer, first in grain and then
+in lumber, and an agent for the sale of farm-lands. He seems to have
+been unable to do much for his boy beyond teaching him to read and
+write, stimulating his taste for reading by paying him small sums of
+money for every book he read through; he had no need to insist that
+the reading should be done thoroughly, for it was the boy's way to
+do thoroughly everything he undertook. His mother, also, helped
+Thomas in learning: she was of Scotch extraction; but, though her
+parents were from the old country, she herself was born in
+Massachusetts, where for a time she had been a school-teacher. This,
+then, with the exception of two months at the village school, was
+the limit of young Edison's education--to use the conventional
+term. The world was now to take him in hand, and show what it could
+do with material so unpromising.
+
+Before he was twelve years old, the boy had found a place as newsboy
+on the Grand Trunk Line running to Detroit. In the intervals between
+his raids upon the helpless passengers with his newspapers,
+periodicals, novels, and candies, he kept up the habit of reading,
+and by practice acquired a remarkably clear and finished
+handwriting. His next step was to secure the sole right of selling
+newspapers on the train, and he soon had four boys under him to
+assist him in the work. Having then bought a lot of old type from
+some printing-office, he rigged up a rude frame in one of the
+baggage-cars that served as a lumber-room, and then proceeded to set
+up and print a newspaper which he called the _Grand Trunk Herald_,
+and sold with the other newspapers. As he had no press, he was
+obliged to take off the impressions by rubbing the paper on the
+inked type with his hands. In some way, a copy of this newspaper
+found its way to the _London Times_, and the editor spoke of it as
+the only newspaper in the world printed on a moving train. During
+the fighting at Pittsburgh Landing in 1862, Edison printed off
+abstracts of the telegraphic news, and posted them up at the small
+country stations, thus rendering a great service to the people
+anxiously waiting for news from the field. The terminus of his train
+was Detroit, and here, for the first time, he had access to a
+library. In his enthusiasm at finding himself in virtual possession
+of such a treasure, he determined, then and there, to read the whole
+library through, as it stood, using his time between trains.
+Beginning at one shelf he read fifteen feet in a line, going through
+each book solidly from cover to cover. In this first bout, among
+other books, he read Newton's "Principia," Ure's "Scientific
+Dictionary," and Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy."
+
+All this time, by hints and suggestions, Nature had been pushing the
+youth toward the field he was finally to occupy almost by right of
+eminent domain. As yet, telegraphy was in its infancy, and the
+powers of electricity only beginning to be known. Edison had from
+the first been interested in the workings of the telegraph line
+along the railroad, and had made some experiments with a rude line
+of his own, connecting his father's home at Port Huron--a village to
+which the family had some time before removed from Milan--with the
+house of a neighbor. To do this, he had to make a battery out of
+odds and ends, old bottles, stove-pipe wire, and nails made out of
+zinc contributed by his youthful friends, who in their zeal cut
+pieces out of the zinc mats under their mothers' stoves. He had no
+one to teach him telegraphy, but an accident--if accidents there
+be--was unexpectedly to put him in the way of learning its secrets.
+The child of the station-master was in danger from a moving train;
+young Edison snatched it up and saved its life at the risk of his
+own, and the grateful father rewarded him by teaching him what he
+knew of telegraphy.
+
+Armed with this rudimentary knowledge, and with what, in addition, he
+had learned by practice, Edison passed the next few years of his life
+in moving about over the country, seeking employment less, it would
+appear, for the sake of employment than for the opportunity of
+increasing his practical knowledge of the art that was to swallow up,
+in his mind, all the other arts. But he seems to have succeeded almost
+in spite of himself. He was so eager in his chase after knowledge that
+he was continually tripping himself up. While still at his trade of
+newsboy on the Grand Trunk Railroad, he had come across, at Detroit
+probably, a copy of Fresenius' "Qualitative Analysis" and had become
+so much interested in chemistry, that alongside his printing-press he
+had fitted up a small laboratory with a chance-medley apparatus for
+experiments, and one day a bottle of phosphorus was upset, and the car
+taking fire was only saved by the energy of the conductor, who
+promptly pitched the whole apparatus, with the printing-press to boot,
+out at the door, and then gave the young Fresenius-Franklin a
+thrashing. Later we hear of him, in the course of his wanderings, set
+to watch a telegraph-machine in the absence of the operator, and to
+prove that he was on guard he was to send the word six over the line
+every half-hour. Not to be interrupted in the book he was reading, he
+contrived a device that did the work automatically. In another office
+he kept back messages while he was contriving a way to send them more
+quickly! Disappearing from this office, he appears again in another,
+this time in Memphis, Tenn. But his interest in solving the problem of
+duplicate transmission proved so absorbing that he continually
+neglected his duties, and on the occasion of a change of officers he
+was dismissed as a useless member of the staff. At Louisville he
+upsets a carboy of sulphuric acid which ruins the handsome furniture
+of a broker's office on the floor below, and again finds himself
+adrift in an unappreciative world. Yet he had proved himself, in spite
+of all drawbacks, an adept of uncommon skill in telegraphy; and so
+widespread in scientific circles was his reputation, that he was sent
+for to Boston to take charge of the main New York wire. The impression
+made by the records of his life at this time is, that he looked upon
+all these employments merely as so many opportunities for earning his
+bread while pursuing his beloved experiments, and that the
+bread-earning was the least important part of the affair. No doubt, he
+always meant to do his duty, but the ecstasy of invention and the
+thirst for discovery carried him out of himself and made him often
+oblivious of sublunary things. While in Boston he still kept up his
+experiments and perfected his duplex telegraph, but it was not brought
+into successful operation until 1872.
+
+In 1871 he came to New York, and having attracted the attention of
+the Stock Exchange by some ingenious suggestions put forth while
+busied in repairing the machine that recorded quotations, he was
+made Superintendent of the Gold and Stock Company, and brought out
+his invention of the printing-telegraph, by which the fluctuations
+of the stock-market in any part of the country are instantly
+recorded on narrow strips of paper.
+
+[Illustration: Thomas A. Edison--The Wizard of Menlo Park.]
+
+The immediate success of this invention, and the great demand for
+the machines, led him to establish a workshop for their manufacture
+in Newark, N. J. But soon the need of still more space, and the
+desire for freedom from interruption while at his work, obliged him
+to give up Newark, and he found new quarters at Menlo Park, N. J.--a
+bare plot of barren acres destitute of natural attraction of any
+kind, unless it be--what to Edison indeed is a great charm--an
+uninterrupted view of the sky; a place virtually unknown before he
+planted there the rude buildings that house his wonderful
+inventions; yet now a place known to scientific men all over the
+world; the Mecca of many a mind seeking to wrest from Nature her
+dearest secrets.
+
+No doubt, many of the inventions that have made Edison famous must
+be ascribed in their conception and ripening' to various periods of
+his life, but to the popular mind they are all associated with the
+wizard's present home, from whence for several years the bulletins
+of inventions--playful, useful, necessary, revolutionary--often as
+simple in their mechanism as they are astonishing in their results,
+have been given to a delighted world. Some of Edison's inventions
+have a character at present of little more than picturesque
+playfulness, such as the Phonograph, perhaps the most remarkable of
+these minor inventions; the Aerophone, by which sounds are amplified
+without loss of distinctness; the Megaphone, an instrument which,
+inserted in the ear, so magnifies sounds that faint whispers may be
+heard a thousand feet; the Phonometer, for measuring the force of
+the soundwaves caused by the human voice; the Microtasimeter, for
+measuring small variations in temperature. This has been tested for
+so small a variation as 1/24000 of a degree Fahrenheit, and in 1878
+was used to detect the presence of heat in the sun's corona. The
+most familiar of these lesser inventions is the Phonograph by which
+sounds are made self-recording and capable of being repeated. While
+this curious invention--almost childish in its simplicity--is as yet
+little more than a plaything, and has proved of small utility, it
+makes, nevertheless, a strong appeal to the imagination when we
+reflect that by its aid the voice of any human being may be
+transmitted to ages far in the future, and its living tones be heard
+long after he who uttered them has returned to the dust.
+
+But, while these inventions have the charm that invests "the
+fairy-tales of science," the world-wide fame of Edison rests upon
+greater gifts to the world; the various improvements he has made in
+the telegraph, and the perfection to which he has brought the
+electric light. The invention of the telephone, by which persons are
+enabled to converse with one another at very long distances, and by
+which concerts, operas, and orations or sermons in one city can be
+heard by an audience assembled in another, is one of the most
+remarkable of Edison's achievements, and one the usefulness of which
+in various directions it is easy to foresee. The idea of the
+transmission of messages in opposite directions by the same wire was
+one that had early occurred to Edison, but he was long in reducing
+it to practice. The secret once discovered, however, he rapidly
+progressed until he had brought out the sextuple telegraph, where we
+believe the ability of the instrument rests at present.
+
+The inventor next turned his mind to the study of the electric lamp,
+in which he saw great possibilities. He believed that he could
+produce a light that should be cheaper than gas, and also purer,
+more steady, and more to be depended on. He rejected the principle
+of the Voltaic arc involved in the Brush patent then in use, by
+which the electric current was passed through a strip of platinum or
+other metal that requires a high temperature to melt, because in
+practice it was found that in fact, owing to the difficulty of
+regulating the flow of the electric current, the medium did often
+melt. He therefore sought for a medium that should be practically
+indestructible, and believed that it would be found in pure carbon
+enclosed in a vacuum. After many trials with one and another
+substance, he at length found that by employing slender strips of
+card-board reduced by intense heat to carbon, connecting them with
+the wires leading from the machine, and enclosing them in glass
+bulbs from which the air had been extracted, the desired result
+could be produced. The next step to accomplish was the division of
+the light, so that any number of lamps could be supplied by the same
+pair of wires--a condition absolutely necessary if the invention
+were to be of practical utility as applied to the lighting of
+factories, public buildings, or private households, where-ever, in
+short, many lights are needed. This was finally accomplished, and in
+December, 1879, an exhibition was given at Menlo Park of a complete
+system of lighting. This first demonstration of the possibility of
+light-division created a great interest in scientific circles all
+over the world, especially as scientific experts had testified
+before the British House of Commons that the feat was impossible.
+The Edison incandescent burner is now in use in every city, town,
+and hamlet in this country, and it would seem as if it must of
+necessity before long drive the costly, unhealthy, and dangerous
+coal-gas out of use for illuminating purposes, although we believe a
+wide field of usefulness lies before the coal-gas as a substitute
+for coal in our kitchens.
+
+Thomas Edison has received few public honors from his countrymen;
+but the nature of his work has been such as to make his name a
+household word throughout his native country; and not only by the
+admiration excited by his genius--for it deserves no less a
+name--but by the practical, every-day benefits he has conferred, he
+has earned a place in the good-will and esteem of his fellows such
+as seldom falls to the lot of man.
+
+[Signature: Clarence Cook.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8, by Various
+
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8
+       A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more
+              than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Charles F. Horne
+
+Release Date: March 30, 2009 [EBook #28456]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT MEN AND FAMOUS WOMEN. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sigal Alon, Christine P. Travers and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<a id="img001" name="img001"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img001.jpg" width="600" height="386" alt="" title="">
+<p>Mme. Roland in the Prison of Ste. Pélagie.</p></div>
+
+<h1>GREAT MEN AND FAMOUS WOMEN</h1>
+
+<p class="noindent center italic">A Series of Pen and Pencil Sketches of</p>
+
+<p class="center noindent">THE LIVES OF MORE THAN 200
+  OF THE MOST PROMINENT PERSONAGES IN HISTORY.</p>
+
+<p class="center noindent">VOL. VI.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p4 noindent center"><span class="smaller">Copyright, 1894, by SELMAR HESS</span><br>
+<span class="smcap">Edited By Charles F. Horne</span></p>
+
+<p class="p4 center noindent smaller"><span class="smcap">New-York: Selmar Hess Publisher</span><br>
+Copyright, 1894, by <span class="smcap">Selmar Hess</span>.</p>
+
+<a id="toc" name="toc"></a>
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="pageiii" name="pageiii"></a>(p. iii)</span> CONTENTS OF VOLUME VI.</h2>
+
+<ul>
+<li>SUBJECT <span class="ralign85">AUTHOR</span> <span class="ralign95">PAGE</span></li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>BENEDICT ARNOLD,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Edgar Fawcett</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page207">207</a></span></li>
+
+<li>PETER COOPER,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Clarence Cook</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page299">299</a></span></li>
+
+<li>CHARLOTTE CORDAY,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Oliver Optic</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page229">229</a></span></li>
+
+<li>GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Elbridge S. Brooks</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page391">391</a></span></li>
+
+<li>SIR HUMPHRY DAVY,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>John Timbs, F.S.A.</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page277">277</a></span></li>
+
+<li>THOMAS ALVA EDISON,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Clarence Cook</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page404">404</a></span></li>
+
+<li>JOHN ERICSSON,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Martha J. Lamb</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page311">311</a></span></li>
+
+<li>CYRUS W. FIELD,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Murat Halstead</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page354">354</a></span></li>
+
+<li>GENERAL JOHN C. FRÉMONT,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Jane Marsh Parker</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page340">340</a></span></li>
+
+<li>ROBERT FULTON,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Oliver Optic</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page267">267</a></span></li>
+
+<li>WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>William Lloyd Garrison</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page318">318</a></span></li>
+
+<li>GENERAL CHARLES GEORGE GORDON,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Colonel R. H. Veitch, R.E.</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page384">384</a></span></li>
+
+<li>NATHAN HALE,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Rev. Edward Everett Hale</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page212">212</a></span></li>
+
+<li>ANDREAS HOFER,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page246">246</a></span></li>
+
+<li>DR. EDWARD JENNER,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>John Timbs, F.S.A.</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page263">263</a></span></li>
+
+<li>ELISHA KENT KANE,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>General A. W. Greely</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page325">325</a></span></li>
+
+<li>THADDEUS KOSCIUSKO,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page216">216</a></span></li>
+
+<li>LOUIS KOSSUTH,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page304">304</a></span></li>
+
+<li>MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>William F. Peck</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page221">221</a></span></li>
+
+<li>FERDINAND DE LESSEPS,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Clarence Cook</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page334">334</a></span></li>
+
+<li>DAVID LIVINGSTONE,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Professor W. G. Blaikie, L.L.D.</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page350">350</a></span></li>
+
+<li><i>Letter of Affection and Advice from Livingstone to his Children</i>,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page353">353</a></span></li>
+
+<li>QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Mrs. Francis G. Faithfull</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page249">249</a></span></li>
+
+<li>MARIE ANTOINETTE,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Mrs. Octavius Freire Owen</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page241">241</a></span></li>
+
+<li><i>Letter to Marie Antoinette from Maria Theresa on the Duties of a Sovereign</i>,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page242">242</a></span></li>
+
+<li>SAMUEL F. B. MORSE,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page297">297</a></span></li>
+
+<li>FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Lizzie Alldridge</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page369">369</a></span></li>
+
+<li>DR. LOUIS PASTEUR,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Dr. Cyrus Edson</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page378">378</a></span></li>
+
+<li>MADAME ROLAND,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Ella Wheeler Wilcox</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page233">233</a></span></li>
+
+<li>GENERAL SAN MARTIN,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Hezekiah Butterworth</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page281">281</a></span></li>
+
+<li>HENRY M. STANLEY,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Noah Brooks</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page395">395</a></span></li>
+
+<li>GEORGE STEPHENSON,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Professor C. M. Woodward</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page286">286</a></span></li>
+
+<li>QUEEN VICTORIA,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>Donald Macleod, D.D.</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page361">361</a></span></li>
+
+<li>JAMES WATT,
+<span class="ralign85 italic"><i>John Timbs, F.S.A.</i>,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page256">256</a></span></li>
+
+<li>WILLIAM WILBERFORCE,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page272">272</a></span></li>
+</ul>
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="pagev" name="pagev"></a>(p. v)</span> LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<p class="center noindent">VOLUME VI.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 noindent center">PHOTOGRAVURES</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" summary="Illustration list">
+<colgroup>
+    <col width="60%">
+    <col width="30%">
+    <col width="10%">
+</colgroup>
+<tr>
+<td>ILLUSTRATION</td>
+<td class="right">ARTIST</td>
+<td class="right">To face<br>page</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>MME. ROLAND IN THE PRISON OF STE. PÉLAGIE,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Évariste Carpentier</td>
+<td class="italic right"><a href="#img001">Frontispiece</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>THE ARCH OF STEEL,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Jean Paul Laurens</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img006">224</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>CHARLOTTE CORDAY AND MARAT,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img008">230</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>MARIE ANTOINETTE,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Théophile Gide</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img011">244</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>QUEEN LOUISE VISITING THE POOR,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Hugo Händler</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img015">250</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>THE FIRST VACCINATION&mdash;DR. JENNER,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Georges-Gaston Mélingue</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img019">266</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>VICTORIA GREETED AS QUEEN,</td>
+<td class="italic right">H. T. Wells</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img037">362</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>PASTEUR IN HIS LABORATORY,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Albert Edelfelt</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img041">380</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p class="p2 noindent center">WOOD-ENGRAVINGS AND TYPOGRAVURES</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" summary="Illustration list">
+<colgroup>
+    <col width="60%">
+    <col width="30%">
+    <col width="10%">
+</colgroup>
+
+<tr>
+<td>ANDREAS HOFER LED TO EXECUTION,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Franz Defregger</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img013">248</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>WATT DISCOVERING THE CONDENSATION OF STEAM,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Marcus Stone</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img017">256</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>SAMUEL F. B. MORSE, INVENTOR OF THE TELEGRAPH,</td>
+<td class="italic right">From a photograph</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img025">298</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>CUTTING THE CANAL AT PANAMA,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Melton Prior</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img032">338</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>WINDSOR CASTLE,</td>
+<td class="italic right">G. Montbard</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img038">364</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>GORDON ATTACKED BY EL MAHDI'S ARABS,</td>
+<td class="italic right">W. H. Overend</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img043">388</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>CUSTER'S LAST FIGHT,</td>
+<td class="italic right">A. R. Ward</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img045">394</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>STANLEY SHOOTING THE RAPIDS OF THE CONGO,</td>
+<td class="italic right">W. H. Overend</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img047">400</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>THOMAS A. EDISON&mdash;THE WIZARD OF MENLO PARK,</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img049">406</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page207" name="page207"></a>(p. 207)</span> BENEDICT ARNOLD<a id="footnotetag1" name="footnotetag1"></a><a href="#footnote1" title="Go to footnote 1"><span class="small">[1]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Edgar Fawcett</span><br>
+
+(1741-1801)</h3>
+
+<a id="img002" name="img002"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img002.jpg" width="250" height="287" alt="Benedict Arnold." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Some of Arnold's biographers have declared that he was a very vicious
+boy, and have chiefly illustrated this fact by painting him as a
+ruthless robber of birds'-nests. But a great many boys who began life by
+robbing birds'-nests have ended it much more creditably. The astonishing
+and interesting element in Benedict Arnold's career was what one might
+term the anomaly and incongruity of his treason. Born at Norwich, Conn.,
+in 1741, he was blessed from his earliest years by wholesome parental
+influences. The education which he received was an excellent one,
+considering his colonial environment. Tales of his boyish pluck and
+hardihood cannot be disputed, while others that record his youthful
+cruelty are doubtless the coinings of slander. It is certain that in
+1755, when the conflict known as "the old French war" first broke out,
+he gave marked proof of patriotism, though as yet the merest lad. Later,
+at the very beginning of the Revolution, he left his thriving business
+as a West India merchant in New Haven and headed a company of
+volunteers. Before the end of 1775 he had been made a commissioned
+colonel by the authorities of Massachusetts, and had marched through a
+sally-port, capturing the fortress of Ticonderoga, with tough old Ethan
+Allen at his side and 83 "Green Mountain Boys" behind him. Later, at the
+siege of Quebec, he behaved with splendid courage. Through great
+difficulties and hardships he dauntlessly led his band to the
+high-perched and almost impregnable town. Pages might be filled in
+telling how toilsome was this campaign, now requiring canoes and
+bateaux, now taxing the strength of its resolute little horde with rough
+rocks, delusive bogs and all <span class="pagenum"><a id="page208" name="page208"></a>(p. 208)</span> those fiercest terrors of famine
+which lurk in a virgin wilderness. Bitter cold, unmerciful snow-falls,
+drift-clogged streams, pelting storms, were constant features of
+Arnold's intrepid march. When we realize the purely unselfish and
+disinterested motive of this march, which has justly been compared to
+that of Xenophon with his 10,000, and to the retreat of Napoleon from
+Moscow as well, we stand aghast at the possibility of its having been
+planned and executed by one who afterward became the basest of traitors.</p>
+
+<p>During the siege of Quebec Arnold was severely wounded, and yet he
+obstinately kept up the blockade even while he lay in the hospital,
+beset by obstacles, of which bodily pain was doubtless not the least.
+The arrival of General Wooster from Montreal with reinforcements rid
+Arnold, however, of all responsibility. Soon afterward the scheme of
+capturing Quebec and inducing the Canadas to join the cause of the
+United Colonies, came to an abrupt end. But in his desire to effect this
+purpose Arnold had identified himself with such lovers of their country
+as Washington, Schuyler, and Montgomery. And if the gallant Montgomery
+had then survived and Arnold had been killed, history could not
+sufficiently have eulogized him as a hero. Soon afterward he was
+promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, and on October 11, 1776,
+while commanding a flotilla of small vessels on Lake Champlain, he
+gained new celebrity for courage. The enemy was greatly superior in
+number to Arnold's forces. "They had," says Bancroft, "more than twice
+his weight of metal and twice as many fighting vessels, and skilled
+seamen and officers against landsmen." Arnold was not victorious in this
+naval fray, but again we find him full of lion-like valor. He was in the
+Congress galley, and there with his own hands often aimed the cannon on
+its bloody decks against the swarming masses of British gunboats.
+Arnold's popularity was very much augmented by his fine exploits on Lake
+Champlain. "With consummate address," says Sparks, "he penetrated the
+enemy's lines and brought off his whole fleet, shattered and disabled as
+it was, and succeeded in saving six of his vessels, and, it might be
+added, most of his men." Again, at the battle of Danbury he tempted
+death countless times; and at Loudon's Ferry and Bemis's Heights his
+prowess and nerve were the perfection of martial merit. It has been
+stated by one or two historians of good repute that Arnold was not
+present at all during the battle of Saratoga; but the latest and most
+trustworthy researches on this point would seem to indicate that he
+commanded there with discretion and skill. He was now a major-general,
+but his irascible spirit had previously been hurt by the tardiness with
+which this honor was conferred upon him, five of his juniors having
+received it before himself. He strongly disliked General Gates, too, and
+quarrelled with him because of what he held to be unfair behavior during
+the engagement at Bemis's Heights. At Stillwater, a month or so later in
+the same year (1777), he issued orders without Gates's permission, and
+conducted himself on the field with a kind of mad frenzy, riding hither
+and thither and seeking the most dangerous spots. All concur in stating,
+however, that his disregard of life was admirable, in spite of its
+foolish rashness. In this action he was also severely wounded.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page209" name="page209"></a>(p. 209)</span> One year later he was appointed to the command of Philadelphia,
+and here he married the daughter of a prominent citizen, Edward Shippen.
+This was his second marriage; he had been a widower for a number of
+years before its occurrence, and the father of three sons. Every chance
+was now afforded Arnold of wise and just rulership. In spite of past
+disputes and adventures not wholly creditable, he still presented before
+the world a fairly clean record, and whatever minor blemishes may have
+spotted his good name, these were obscured by the almost dazzling lustre
+of his soldierly career. But no sooner was he installed in his new
+position at Philadelphia than he began to show, with wilful perversity,
+those evil impulses which thus far had remained relatively latent.
+Almost as soon as he entered the town he disclosed to its citizens the
+most offensive traits of arrogance and tyranny. But this was not all.
+Not merely was he accused on every side of such faults as the improper
+issuing of passes, the closing of Philadelphia shops on his arrival, the
+imposition of menial offices upon the sons of freemen performing
+military duty, the use of wagons furnished by the State for transporting
+private property; but misdeeds of a far graver nature were traced to
+him, savoring of the criminality that prisons are built to punish. The
+scandalous gain with which he sought to fill a spendthrift purse caused
+wide and vehement rebuke. For a man of such high and peculiar place his
+commercial dabblings and speculative schemes argued most deplorably
+against him. There seems to be no doubt that he made personal use of the
+public moneys with which he was intrusted; that he secured by unworthy
+and illegal means a naval State prize, brought into port by a
+Pennsylvanian ship; and that he meditated the fitting up of a privateer,
+with intent to secure from the foe such loot on the high seas as
+piratical hazard would permit. His house in Philadelphia was one of the
+finest that the town possessed; he drove about in a carriage and four;
+he entertained with excessive luxury and a large retinue of servants; he
+revelled in all sorts of pompous parade. Such ostentation would have
+roused adverse comment amid the simple colonial surroundings of a
+century ago, even if he had merely been a citizen of extraordinary
+wealth. But being an officer intrusted with the most important dignities
+in a country both struggling for its freedom and impoverished as to
+funds, he now played a part of exceptional shame and folly.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally his arraignment before the authorities of the State soon
+followed. The Council of Pennsylvania tried him, and though their final
+verdict was an extremely gentle one, its very mildness of condemnation
+proved poison to his truculent pride. Washington, the
+commander-in-chief, reprimanded him, but with language of exquisite
+lenity. Still, Arnold never forgave the stab that was then so
+deservingly yet so pityingly dealt him.</p>
+
+<p>His colossal treason&mdash;one of the most monstrous in all the records of
+history, soon afterward began its wily work. Under the name of
+<i>Gustavus</i> he opened a correspondence with Sir Henry Clinton, an English
+officer in command at New York. Sir Henry at once scented the sort of
+villainy which would be of vast use to his cause, however he might
+loathe and contemn its designer. He instructed his aide-de-camp, Major
+John André, to send cautious and pseudonymic <span class="pagenum"><a id="page210" name="page210"></a>(p. 210)</span> replies. In his
+letters Arnold showed the burning sense of wrong from which he believed
+himself (and with a certain amount of justice) to be suffering. He had,
+when all is told, received harsh treatment from his country, considering
+how well he had served it in the past. Even Irving, that most
+dispassionate of historians, has called the action of the court-martial
+just mentioned an "extraordinary measure to prepossess the public mind
+against him." Beyond doubt, too, he had been repeatedly assailed by
+slanders and misstatements. The animosity of party feeling had more than
+once wrongfully assailed him, and his second marriage to the daughter of
+a man whose Tory sympathies were widely known had roused political
+hatreds, unsparing and headstrong.</p>
+
+<p>But these facts are merely touched upon to make more clear the motive of
+his infamous plot. Determined to give the enemy a great vantage in
+return for the pecuniary indemnity that he required of them, this
+unhappy man stooped low enough to ask and obtain from Washington, the
+command of West Point. André, who had for months written him letters in
+a disguised hand under the name of John Anderson, finally met him, one
+night, at the foot of a mountain about six miles below Stony Point,
+called the Long Clove. Arnold, with infinite cunning, had devised this
+meeting, and had tempted the adventurous spirit of André, who left a
+British man-of-war called the Vulture in order to hold converse with his
+fellow-conspirator. But before the unfortunate André could return to his
+ship (having completed his midnight confab and received from Arnold the
+most damning documentary evidence of treachery) the Vulture was fired
+upon from Teller's Point by a party of Americans, who had secretly
+carried cannon thither during the earlier night. André was thus deserted
+by his own countrymen, for the Vulture moved away and left him with a
+man named Joshua Smith, a minion in Arnold's employ. Of poor André's
+efforts to reach New York, of his capture and final pathetic execution,
+we need not speak. On his person, at the time of his arrest, was found a
+complete description of the West Point post and garrison&mdash;documentary
+evidence that scorched with indelible disgrace the name of the man who
+had supplied it.</p>
+
+<p>On September 25, 1780, Arnold escaped to a British sloop-of-war anchored
+below West Point. He was made a colonel in the English army, and is said
+to have received the sum of £6,315 as the price of his treachery. The
+command of a body of troops in Connecticut was afterward given him, and
+he then showed a rapacity and intolerance that well consorted with the
+new position he had so basely purchased. The odium of his injured
+countrymen spoke loudly throughout the land he had betrayed. He was
+burned in effigy countless times, and a growing generation was told with
+wrath and scorn the abhorrent tale of his turpitude. Meanwhile, as if by
+defiant self-assurance to wipe away the perfidy of former acts, he
+issued a proclamation to "the inhabitants of America," in which he
+strove to cleanse himself from blame. This address, teeming with flimsy
+protestations of patriotism, reviling Congress, vituperating France as a
+worthless and sordid ally of the Crown's rebellious subjects, met on all
+sides the most contemptuous derision. Arnold passed nearly all the
+remainder of his life&mdash;eleven <span class="pagenum"><a id="page211" name="page211"></a>(p. 211)</span> years or thereabouts&mdash;in
+England. He died in London, worn out with a nervous disease, on June 14,
+1801. It is a remarkable fact that his second wife, who had till the
+last remained faithful to him, suffered acutely at his death, and both
+spoke and wrote of him in accents of strongest bereavement.</p>
+
+<p>To the psychologic student of human character, Benedict Arnold presents
+a strangely fascinating picture. Elements of good were unquestionably
+factors of his mental being. But pride, revenge, jealousy, and an almost
+superhuman egotism fatally swayed him. He desired to lead in all things,
+and he had far too much vanity, far too little self-government, and not
+half enough true morality to lead with success and permanence in any.
+The wrongs which beyond doubt his country inflicted upon him he was
+incapable of bearing like a stoic. Virile and patriotic from one point
+of view, he was childish and weak-fibred from another. He has been
+likened to Marlborough, though by no means so great a soldier. Yet it is
+true that John Churchill won his dukedom by deserting his former
+benefactor, James II, and joining the Whig cause of William of Orange.
+If the Revolution had been crushed, we cannot blind our eyes to the fact
+that Arnold's treason would have received from history far milder
+dealing than is accorded it now. Even the radiant name of Washington
+would very probably have shone to us dimmed and blurred through a mist
+of calamity. Posterity may respect the patriot whose star sinks in
+unmerited failure, but it bows homage to him if he wages against
+despotism a victorious fight. Supposing that Arnold's surrender of West
+Point had extinguished that splendid spark of liberty which glowed
+primarily at Lexington and Bunker Hill, the chances are that he might
+have received an English peerage and died in all the odor of a
+distinction as brilliant as it would have been undeserved. The triumph
+of the American rebellion so soon after he had ignominiously washed his
+hands of it, sealed forever his own social doom. That, it is certain,
+was most severe and drastic. The money paid him by the British
+Government was accursed as were the thirty silver pieces of Iscariot;
+for his passion to speculate ruined him financially some time before the
+end of his life, and he breathed his last amid comparative poverty and
+the dread of still darker reverses.</p>
+
+<p>Extreme sensitiveness is apt to accompany a spirit of just his
+high-strung, petulant, and spleenful sort. Beyond doubt he must have
+suffered keen torments at the disdain with which he was everywhere met
+in English society, and chiefly among the military officers whom his
+very conduct, renegade though it was, had in a measure forced to
+recognize him. When Lord Cornwallis gave his sword to Washington, its
+point pierced Arnold's breast with a wound rankling and incurable. He
+had played for high stakes with savage and devilish desperation. Our
+national independence meant his future slavery; our priceless gain
+became his irretrievable loss. It is stated that as death approached him
+he grew excessively anxious about the risky and shattered state of his
+affairs. His mind wandered, as Mrs. Arnold writes, and he fancied
+himself once more fighting those battles which had brought him honor and
+fame. It was then that he would call for his old insignia of an American
+soldier and would desire to be again clothed in them. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page212" name="page212"></a>(p. 212)</span> "Bring
+me, I beg of you," he is reported to have said, "the epaulettes and
+sword-knots which Washington gave me. Let me die in my old American
+uniform, the uniform in which I fought my battles!" And once, it is
+declared, he gave vent to these most significant and terrible words:
+"God forgive me for ever putting on any other!" That country which he
+forswore in the hour of its direst need can surely afford to forgive
+Benedict Arnold as well. Grown the greatest republic of which history
+keeps any record, America need not find it difficult both to forget the
+wretched frailties of this, her grossly misguided son, and at the same
+time to remember what services he performed for her while as yet his
+baleful qualities had not swept beyond all bounds of restraint.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig001" name="sig001"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig001.jpg" width="300" height="67" alt="Author signature. Edgar Fawcett." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>NATHAN HALE<a id="footnotetag2" name="footnotetag2"></a><a href="#footnote2" title="Go to footnote 2"><span class="small">[2]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Rev. Edward Everett Hale</span><br>
+
+(1755-1776)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img003" name="img003"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img003.jpg" width="100" height="287" alt="Nathan Hale." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Nathan Hale, a martyr soldier of the American Revolution, was born in
+Coventry, Conn., on June 6, 1755. When but little more than twenty-one
+years old he was hanged, by order of General William Howe, as a spy, in
+the city of New York, on September 22, 1776.</p>
+
+<p>At the great centennial celebration of the Revolution, and the part
+which the State of Connecticut bore in it, an immense assembly of the
+people of Connecticut, on the heights of Groton, took measures for the
+erection of a statue in Hale's honor. Their wish has been carried out by
+their agents in the government of the State. A bronze statue of Hale is
+in the State Capitol. Another bronze statue of him has been erected in
+the front of the Wadsworth Athenæum in Hartford. Another is in the city
+of New York.</p>
+
+<p>Nathan Hale's father was Richard Hale, who had emigrated to Coventry,
+from Newbury, Mass., in 1746, and had married Elizabeth, the daughter of
+Joseph Strong. By her he had twelve children, of whom Nathan was the
+sixth.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Hale was a prosperous and successful farmer. He sent to Yale
+College at one time his two sons, Enoch and Nathan, who had been born
+within two years of each other. This college was then under the
+direction of Dr. Daggett. Both the young men enjoyed study, and Nathan
+Hale, at the exercises of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page213" name="page213"></a>(p. 213)</span> Commencement Day took what is called
+a part, which shows that he was among the thirteen scholars of highest
+rank in his class.</p>
+
+<p>From the record of the college society to which he belonged, it appears
+that he was interested in their theatrical performances. These were not
+discouraged by the college government, and made a recognized part of the
+amusements of the college and the town. Many of the lighter plays
+brought forward on the English stage were thus produced by the pupils of
+Yale College for the entertainment of the people of New Haven.</p>
+
+<p>When he graduated, at the age of eighteen, he probably intended at some
+time to become a Christian minister, as his brother Enoch did. But, as
+was almost a custom of the time, he began his active life as a teacher
+in the public schools, and early in 1774 accepted an appointment as the
+teacher of the Union Grammar School, a school maintained by the
+gentlemen of New London, Conn., for the higher education of their
+children. Of thirty-two pupils, he says, "ten are Latiners and all but
+one of the rest are writers."</p>
+
+<p>In his commencement address Hale had considered the question whether the
+higher education of women were not neglected. And, in the arrangement of
+the Union School at New London, it was determined that between the hours
+of five and seven in the morning, he should teach a class of "twenty
+young ladies" in the studies which occupied their brothers at a later
+hour.</p>
+
+<p>He was thus engaged in the year 1774. The whole country was alive with
+the movements and discussions which came to a crisis in the battle of
+Lexington the next year. Hale, though not of age, was enrolled in the
+militia and was active in the military organization of the town.</p>
+
+<p>So soon as the news of Lexington and Concord reached New London, a
+town-meeting was called. At this meeting, this young man, not yet of
+age, was one of the speakers. "Let us march immediately," he said, "and
+never lay down our arms until we obtain our independence." He assembled
+his school as usual the next day, but only to take leave of his
+scholars. "He gave them earnest counsel, prayed with them, shook each by
+the hand," and bade them farewell.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that there is no other record so early as this in which the
+word "independence" was publicly spoken. It would seem as if the
+uncalculating courage of a boy of twenty were needed to break the spell
+which still gave dignity to colonial submission.</p>
+
+<p>He was commissioned as First Lieutenant in the Seventh Connecticut
+regiment, and resigned his place as teacher. The first duty assigned to
+the regiment was in the neighborhood of New London, where, probably,
+they were perfecting their discipline. On September 14, 1775, they were
+ordered by Washington to Cambridge. There they were placed on the left
+wing of his army, and made their camp at the foot of Winter Hill. This
+was the post which commanded the passage from Charlestown, one of the
+only two roads by which the English could march out from Boston. Here
+they remained until the next spring. Hale himself gives the most
+interesting details of that great victory by which Washington and his
+officers changed that force of minute-men, by which they had overawed
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page214" name="page214"></a>(p. 214)</span> Boston in 1775, into a regular army. Hale re-enlisted as many
+of the old men as possible, and then went back to Coventry to engage,
+from his old school companions, soldiers for the war. After a month of
+such effort at home, he came back with a body of recruits to Roxbury.</p>
+
+<p>On January 30th his regiment was removed to the right wing in Roxbury.
+Here they joined in the successful night enterprise of March 4th and
+5th, by which the English troops were driven from Boston.</p>
+
+<p>So soon as the English army had left the country, Washington knew that
+their next point of attack would be New York. Most of his army was,
+therefore, sent there, and Webb's regiment among the rest. They were at
+first assigned to the Canada army, but because they had a good many
+seafaring men, were reserved for service near New York, where their
+"web-footed" character served them well more than once that summer. Hale
+marched with the regiment to New London, whence they all went by water
+to New York. On that critical night, when the whole army was moved
+across to New York after the defeat at Brooklyn, the regiment rendered
+effective service.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this period that Hale planned an attack, made by members of
+his own company, to set fire to the frigate Ph&oelig;nix. The frigate was
+saved, but one of her tenders and four cannons and six swivels were
+taken. The men received the thanks, praises, and rewards of Washington,
+and the frigate, with her companions, not caring to risk such attacks
+again, retired to the Narrows. Soon after this little brush with the
+enemy, Colonel Knowlton, of one of the Connecticut regiments, organized
+a special corps, which was known as Knowlton's Rangers. On the rolls of
+their own regiments the officers and men are spoken of as "detached on
+command." They received their orders direct from Washington and Putnam,
+and were kept close in front of the enemy, watching his movements from
+the American line in Harlem. It was in this service, on September 15th,
+that Knowlton's Rangers, with three Virginia companies, drove the
+English troops from their position in an open fight. It was a spirited
+action, which was a real victory for the attacking force. Knowlton and
+Leitch, the leaders, were both killed. In his general orders Washington
+spoke of Knowlton as a gallant and brave officer who would have been an
+honor to any country.</p>
+
+<p>But Hale, alas! was not fighting at Knowlton's side. He was indeed
+"detached for special service." Washington had been driven up the island
+of New York, and was holding his place with the utmost difficulty. On
+September 6th he wrote, "We have not been able to obtain the least
+information as to the enemy's plans." In sheer despair at the need of
+better information than the Tories of New York City would give him, the
+great commander consulted his council, and at their direction summoned
+Knowlton to ask for some volunteer of intelligence, who would find his
+way into the English lines, and bring back some tidings that could be
+relied upon. Knowlton summoned a number of officers, and stated to them
+the wishes of their great chief. The appeal was received with dead
+silence. It is said that Knowlton personally addressed a
+non-commissioned officer, a Frenchman, who was an old soldier. He did so
+only to receive the natural <span class="pagenum"><a id="page215" name="page215"></a>(p. 215)</span> reply, "I am willing to be shot,
+but not to be hung." Knowlton felt that he must report his failure to
+Washington. But Nathan Hale, his youngest captain, broke the silence. "I
+will undertake it," he said. He had come late to the meeting. He was
+pale from recent sickness. But he saw an opportunity to serve, and he
+did the duty which came next his hand.</p>
+
+<p>William Hull, afterward the major-general who commanded at Detroit, had
+been Hale's college classmate. He remonstrated with his friend on the
+danger of the task, and the ignominy which would attend its failure. "He
+said to him that it was not in the line of his duty, and that he was of
+too frank and open a temper to act successfully the part of a spy, or to
+face its dangers, which would probably lead to a disgraceful death."
+Hale replied, "I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary
+to the public good becomes honorable by being necessary. If the
+exigencies of my country demand a peculiar service, its claims to
+perform that service are imperious." These are the last words of his
+which can be cited until those which he spoke at the moment of his
+death. He promised Hull to take his arguments into consideration, but
+Hull never heard from him again.</p>
+
+<p>In the second week of September he left the camp for Stamford with
+Stephen Hempstead, a sergeant in Webb's regiment, from whom we have the
+last direct account of his journey. With Hempstead and Asher Wright, who
+was his servant in camp, he left his uniform and some other articles of
+property. He crossed to Long Island in citizen's dress, and, as
+Hempstead thought, took with him his college diploma, meaning to assume
+the aspect of a Connecticut schoolmaster visiting New York in the hope
+to establish himself. He landed near Huntington, or Oyster Bay, and
+directed the boatman to return at a time fixed by him, the 20th of
+September. He made his way into New York, and there, for a week or more
+apparently, prosecuted his inquiries. He returned on the day fixed, and
+awaited his boat. It appeared, as he thought; and he made a signal from
+the shore. Alas! he had mistaken the boat. She was from an English
+frigate, which lay screened by a point of woods, and had come in for
+water. Hale attempted to retrace his steps, but was too late. He was
+seized and examined. Hidden in the soles of his shoes were his
+memoranda, in the Latin language. They compromised him at once. He was
+carried on board the frigate, and sent to New York the same day, well
+guarded.</p>
+
+<p>It was at an unfortunate moment, if anyone expected tenderness from
+General Howe. Hale landed while the city was in the tenor of the great
+conflagration of September 21st. In that fire nearly a quarter of the
+town was burned down. The English supposed, rightly or not, that the
+fire had been begun by the Americans. The bells had been taken from the
+churches by order of the Provincial Congress. The fire-engines were out
+of order, and for a time it seemed impossible to check the flames. Two
+hundred persons were sent to jail upon the supposition that they were
+incendiaries. It is in the midst of such confusion that Hale is taken to
+General Howe's head-quarters, and there he meets his doom.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page216" name="page216"></a>(p. 216)</span> No testimony could be stronger against him than the papers on
+his person. He was not there to prevaricate, and he told them his rank
+and name. There was no trial, and Howe at once ordered that he should be
+hanged the next morning. Worse than this, had he known it, he was to be
+hanged by William Cunningham, the Provost-Major, a man whose brutality,
+through the war disgraced the British army. It is a satisfaction to know
+that Cunningham was hanged for his deserts in England, not many years
+after.<a id="footnotetag3" name="footnotetag3"></a><a href="#footnote3" title="Go to footnote 3"><span class="small">[3]</span></a></p>
+
+<p>Hale was confined for the night of September 21st in the greenhouse of
+the garden of Howe's head-quarters. This place was known as the Beckman
+Mansion, at Turtle Bay. This house was standing until within a few
+years.</p>
+
+<p>Early the next day he was led to his death. "On the morning of the
+execution," said Captain Montresor, an English officer, "my station
+being near the fatal spot, I requested the Provost-Marshal to permit the
+prisoner to sit in my marquee while he was making the necessary
+preparations. Captain Hale entered. He asked for writing materials,
+which I furnished him. He wrote two letters; one to his mother and one
+to a brother officer. The Provost-Marshal destroyed the letters, and
+assigned as a reason that the rebels should not know that they had a man
+in their army who could die with so much firmness."</p>
+
+<p>Hale asked for a Bible, but his request was refused. He was marched out
+by a guard and hanged upon an apple-tree in Rutgers's orchard. The place
+was near the present intersection of East Broadway and Market Streets.
+Cunningham asked him to make his dying "speech and confession." "I only
+regret," he said, "that I have but one life to lose for my country."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig002" name="sig002"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig002.jpg" width="300" height="66" alt="Author signature. Edward E. Hale." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>THADDEUS KOSCIUSKO<br>
+
+(1746-1817)</h3>
+
+
+<p>Among the remarkable men of modern times there is perhaps none whose
+fame is purer from reproach than that of Thaddeus Kosciusko. His name is
+enshrined in the ruins of his unhappy country, which, with heroic
+bravery and devotion, he sought to defend against foreign oppression and
+foreign domination. Kosciusko was born at Warsaw about the year 1746. He
+was educated at the School of Cadets, in that city, where he
+distinguished himself so much in scientific studies as well as in
+drawing, that he was selected as one of four students of that
+institution <span class="pagenum"><a id="page217" name="page217"></a>(p. 217)</span> who were sent to travel at the expense of the
+state, with a view of perfecting their talents. In this capacity he
+visited France, where he remained for several years, devoting himself to
+studies of various kinds. On his return to his own country he entered
+the army, and obtained the command of a company. But he was soon obliged
+to expatriate himself again, in order to fly from a violent but
+unrequited passion for the daughter of the Marshal of Lithuania, one of
+the first officers of state of the Polish court.</p>
+
+<a id="img004" name="img004"></a>
+<div class="floatright">
+<img src="images/img004.jpg" width="250" height="332" alt="Thaddeus Kosciusko." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>He bent his steps to that part of North America which was then waging
+its war of independence against England. Here he entered the army, and
+served with distinction as one of the adjutants of General Washington.
+While thus employed, he became acquainted with Lafayette, Lameth, and
+other distinguished Frenchmen serving in the same cause, and was honored
+by receiving the most flattering praises from Franklin, as well as the
+public thanks of the Congress of the United Provinces. He was also
+decorated with the new American order of Cincinnatus, being the only
+European, except Lafayette, to whom it was given.</p>
+
+<p>At the termination of the war he returned to his own country, where he
+lived in retirement till the year 1789, at which period he was promoted
+by the Diet to the rank of major-general. That body was at this time
+endeavoring to place its military force upon a respectable footing, in
+the vain hope of restraining and diminishing the domineering influence
+of foreign powers in what still remained of Poland. It also occupied
+itself in changing the vicious constitution of that unfortunate and
+ill-governed country&mdash;in rendering the monarchy hereditary, in declaring
+universal toleration, and in preserving the privileges of the nobility,
+while at the same time it ameliorated the condition of the lower orders.
+In all these improvements Stanislas Poniatowski, the reigning king,
+readily concurred; though the avowed intention of the Diet was to render
+the crown hereditary in the Saxon family. The King of Prussia (Frederick
+William II.), who, from the time of the treaty of Cherson, in 1787,
+between Russia and Austria, had become hostile to the former power, also
+encouraged the Poles in their proceedings; and even gave them the most
+positive assurances of assisting them, in case the changes they were
+effecting occasioned any attacks from other sovereigns.</p>
+
+<p>Russia at length, having made peace with the Turks, prepared to throw
+her sword into the scale. A formidable opposition to the measures of the
+Diet had arisen, even among the Poles themselves, and occasioned what
+was called the confederation of Targowicz, to which the Empress of
+Russia promised her assistance. The feeble Stanislas, who had proclaimed
+the new constitution in 1791, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page218" name="page218"></a>(p. 218)</span> bound himself in 1792 to
+sanction the Diet of Grodno, which restored the ancient constitution,
+with all its vices and all its abuses. In the meanwhile Frederick
+William, King of Prussia, who had so mainly contributed to excite the
+Poles to their enterprises, basely deserted them, and refused to give
+them any assistance. On the contrary, he stood aloof from the contest,
+waiting for that share of the spoil which the haughty empress of the
+north might think proper to allot to him, as a reward of his
+non-interference.</p>
+
+<p>But though thus betrayed on all sides, the Poles were not disposed to
+submit without a struggle. They flew to arms, and found in the nephew of
+their king, the Prince Joseph Poniatowski, a general worthy to conduct
+so glorious a cause. Under his command Kosciusko first became known in
+European warfare. He distinguished himself in the battle of Zielenec,
+and still more in that of Dubienska, which took place on June 18, 1792.
+Upon this latter occasion he defended for six hours, with only 4,000
+men, against 15,000 Russians, a post which had been slightly fortified
+in twenty-four hours, and at last retired with inconsiderable loss.</p>
+
+<p>But the contest was too unequal to last; the patriots were overwhelmed
+by enemies from without, and betrayed by traitors within, at the head of
+whom was their own sovereign. The Russians took possession of the
+country, and proceeded to appropriate those portions of Lithuania and
+Volhynia which suited their convenience; while Prussia, the friendly
+Prussia, invaded another part of the kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>Under these circumstances the most distinguished officers in the Polish
+army retired from the service, and of this number was Kosciusko.
+Miserable at the fate of his unhappy country, and at the same time an
+object of suspicion to the ruling powers, he left his native land and
+retired to Leipsic, where he received intelligence of the honor which
+had been conferred upon him by the Legislative Assembly of France, who
+had invested him with the quality of a French citizen.</p>
+
+<p>But his fellow-countrymen were still anxious to make another struggle
+for independence, and they unanimously selected Kosciusko as their chief
+and generalissimo. He obeyed the call, and found the patriots eager to
+combat under his orders. Even the noble Joseph Poniatowski, who had
+previously commanded in chief, returned from France, whither he had
+retired, and received from the hands of Kosciusko the charge of a
+portion of his army.</p>
+
+<p>The patriots had risen in the north of Poland, to which part Kosciusko
+first directed his steps. Anxious to begin his campaign with an action
+of vigor, he marched rapidly toward Cracow, which town he entered
+triumphantly on March 24, 1794. He forthwith published a manifesto
+against the Russians; and then, at the head of only 5,000 men, he
+marched to meet their army. He encountered, on April 4th, 10,000
+Russians at a place called Wraclawic, and entirely defeated them after a
+combat of four hours. He returned in triumph to Cracow, and shortly
+afterward marched along the left bank of the Vistula to Polaniec, where
+he established his head-quarters.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the inhabitants of Warsaw, animated by the recital of the
+heroic <span class="pagenum"><a id="page219" name="page219"></a>(p. 219)</span> deeds of their countrymen, had also raised the standard
+of independence, and were successful in driving the Russians from the
+city, after a murderous conflict of three days. In Lithuania and
+Samogitia an equally successful revolution was effected before the end
+of April, while the Polish troops stationed in Volhynia and Podolia
+marched to the reinforcement of Kosciusko.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far fortune seemed to smile upon the cause of Polish freedom&mdash;the
+scene was, however, about to change. The undaunted Kosciusko, having
+first organized a national council to conduct the affairs of government,
+once more advanced against the Russians. On his march he met a new enemy
+in the person of the faithless Frederick William, of Prussia, who,
+without having even gone through the preliminary of declaring war, had
+advanced into Poland at the head of 40,000 men.</p>
+
+<p>Kosciusko, with but 13,000 men, attacked the Prussian army on June 8th,
+at Szcekociny. The battle was long and bloody; at length, overwhelmed by
+numbers, he was obliged to retreat toward Warsaw. This he effected in so
+able a manner that his enemies did not dare to harass him in his march;
+and he effectually covered the capital and maintained his position for
+two months against vigorous and continued attacks. Immediately after
+this reverse the Polish general, Zaionczeck, lost the battle of Chelm,
+and the Governor of Cracow had the baseness to deliver the town to the
+Prussians without attempting a defence.</p>
+
+<p>These disasters occasioned disturbances among the disaffected at Warsaw,
+which, however, were put down by the vigor and firmness of Kosciusko. On
+July 13th the forces of the Prussians and Russians, amounting to 50,000
+men, assembled under the walls of Warsaw, and commenced the siege of
+that city. After six weeks spent before the place, and a succession of
+bloody conflicts, the confederates were obliged to raise the siege; but
+this respite to the Poles was but of short duration.</p>
+
+<p>Their enemies increased fearfully in number, while their own resources
+diminished. Austria now determined to assist in the annihilation of
+Poland, and caused a body of her troops to enter that kingdom. Nearly at
+the same moment the Russians ravaged Lithuania; and the two corps of the
+Russian army commanded by Suwarof and Fersen, effected their junction in
+spite of the battle of Krupezyce, which the Poles had ventured upon,
+with doubtful issue, against the first of these commanders, on September
+16th.</p>
+
+<p>Upon receiving intelligence of these events Kosciusko left Warsaw, and
+placed himself at the head of the Polish army. He was attacked by the
+very superior forces of the confederates on October 10, 1794, at a place
+called Macieiowice, and for many hours supported the combat against
+overwhelming odds. At length he was severely wounded, and as he fell, he
+uttered the prophetic words "<i>Finis Poloniæ</i>." It is asserted that he
+had exacted from his followers an oath, not to suffer him to fall alive
+into the hands of the Russians, and that in consequence the Polish
+cavalry, being unable to carry him off, inflicted some severe sabre
+wounds on him and left him for dead on the field; a savage fidelity,
+which we half admire even in condemning it. Be this as it may, he was
+recognized and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page220" name="page220"></a>(p. 220)</span> delivered from the plunderers by some Cossack
+chiefs; and thus was saved from death to meet a scarcely less harsh
+fate&mdash;imprisonment in a Russian dungeon.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Wawrzecki became the successor of Kosciusko in the command of the
+army; but with the loss of their heroic leader all hope had deserted the
+breasts of the Poles. They still, however, fought with all the obstinacy
+of despair, and defended the suburb of Warsaw, called Praga, with great
+gallantry. At length this post was wrested from them. Warsaw itself
+capitulated on November 9, 1794; and this calamity was followed by the
+entire dissolution of the Polish army on the 18th of the same month.</p>
+
+<p>During this time, Kosciusko remained in prison at St. Petersburg; but,
+at the end of two years, the death of his persecutress, the Empress
+Catharine, released him. One of the first acts of the Emperor Paul was
+to restore him to liberty, and to load him with various marks of his
+favor. Among other gifts of the autocrat was a pension, by which,
+however, the high-spirited patriot would never consent to profit. No
+sooner was he beyond the reach of Russian influence than he returned to
+the donor the instrument by which this humiliating favor was conferred.
+From this period the life of Kosciusko was passed in retirement. He went
+first to England, and then to the United States of America. He returned
+to the Old World in 1798, and took up his abode in France, where he
+divided his time between Paris and a country-house he had bought near
+Fontainebleau. While here he received the appropriate present of the
+sword of John Sobieski, which was sent to him by some of his countrymen
+serving in the French armies in Italy, who had found it in the shrine at
+Loretto.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon, when about to invade Poland in 1807, wished to use the name of
+Kosciusko in order to rally the people of the country round his
+standard. The patriot, aware that no real freedom was to be hoped for
+under such auspices, at once refused to lend himself to his wishes. Upon
+this the emperor forged Kosciusko's signature to an address to the
+Poles, which was distributed throughout the country. Nor would he permit
+the injured person to deny the authenticity of this act in any public
+manner. The real state of the case was, however, made known to many
+through the private representations of Kosciusko; but he was never able
+to publish a formal denial of the transaction till after the fall of
+Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>When the Russians, in 1814, had penetrated into Champagne, and were
+advancing toward Paris, they were astonished to hear that their former
+adversary was living in retirement in that part of the country. The
+circumstances of this discovery were striking. The commune in which
+Kosciusko lived was subjected to plunder, and among the troops thus
+engaged he observed a Polish regiment. Transported with anger, he rushed
+among them, and thus addressed the officers: "When I commanded brave
+soldiers they never pillaged; and I should have punished severely
+subalterns who allowed of disorders such as those which we see around.
+Still more severely should I have punished older officers, who
+authorized such conduct by their culpable neglect." "And who are you,"
+was the general cry, "that you dare to speak with such boldness to us?"
+"I am Kosciusko." The effect was electric: the soldiery cast down their
+arms, prostrated <span class="pagenum"><a id="page221" name="page221"></a>(p. 221)</span> themselves at his feet, and cast dust upon
+their heads according to a national usage, supplicating his forgiveness
+for the fault which they had committed. For twenty years the name of
+Kosciusko had not been heard in Poland save as that of an exile; yet it
+still retained its ancient power over Polish hearts; a power never used
+but for some good and generous end.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor Alexander honored him with a long interview, and offered him
+an asylum in his own country. But nothing could induce Kosciusko again
+to see his unfortunate native land. In 1815 he retired to Soleure, in
+Switzerland; where he died, October 16, 1817, in consequence of an
+injury received by a fall from his horse. Not long before he had
+abolished slavery upon his Polish estate, and declared all his serfs
+entirely free, by a deed registered and executed with every formality
+that could insure the full performance of his intention. The mortal
+remains of Kosciusko were removed to Poland at the expense of Alexander,
+and have found a fitting place of rest in the cathedral of Cracow,
+between those of his companions in arms, Joseph Poniatowski, and the
+greatest of Polish warriors, John Sobieski.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE<a id="footnotetag4" name="footnotetag4"></a><a href="#footnote4" title="Go to footnote 4"><span class="small">[4]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">William F. Peck</span><br>
+
+(1757-1834)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img005" name="img005"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img005.jpg" width="250" height="310" alt="Marquis de la Fayette." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Marie Jean Paul Roch Yves Gilbert Motier, Marquis de la Fayette,<a id="footnotetag5" name="footnotetag5"></a><a href="#footnote5" title="Go to footnote 5"><span class="small">[5]</span></a> one
+of the most celebrated men that France ever produced, was born at
+Chavaignac, in Auvergne, on September 6, 1757, of a noble family, with a
+long line of illustrious ancestors. Left an orphan at the age of
+thirteen, he married, three years later, his cousin Anastasie, Countess
+de Noailles. Inspired from the earliest age with a love of freedom and
+aversion to constraint, the impulses of childhood became the daydreams
+of youth and the realities of maturer life. Filled with enthusiastic
+sympathy for the struggling colonies of America in their contest with
+Great Britain, he offered his services to the United States, and, though
+his enterprise was forbidden by the French Government, hired a vessel,
+sailed for this country, landed at Charleston in April, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page222" name="page222"></a>(p. 222)</span> 1777,
+and proceeded to Philadelphia. His advances having been treated by
+Congress with some coldness, by reason of the incessant application of
+other foreigners for commissions, he offered to serve as a volunteer and
+at his own expense. Congress may be excused for having taken him at his
+word; on July 31st it appointed him major-general, without pay the
+titular honor, which carried with it no command, being, perhaps, the
+highest ever given in America to a young man of nineteen years. Having
+accepted the cordial invitation of General Washington, the
+commander-in-chief, to live at his head-quarters and to serve on his
+staff, Lafayette was severely wounded in the leg at the battle of the
+Brandywine, on September 11th, and the intrepidity he displayed in that
+engagement was equalled by the fortitude that he evinced during the
+following winter, in which he shared the privations of the American army
+in the wretched camp at Valley Forge. His fidelity to Washington at this
+time, when the latter was maligned by secret foes and conspired against
+by Conway's cabal, cemented the friendship between those great men.
+Lafayette was soon afterward detached to take command of an expedition
+that was to set out from Albany, cross Lake Champlain on the ice, and
+invade Canada; but, on arriving at the intended starting-point, and
+finding that no adequate preparations had been made, he refused to
+repeat the unfortunate experiment of Montgomery and Arnold of two years
+before, and waited for suitable supplies to be sent to him before
+setting out. These came not, the ice melted in March, and he returned to
+Valley Forge, with the thanks of Congress for his forbearance in
+abstaining from risking the loss of an army in order to acquire personal
+glory. France having declared war against England, May 2, 1778, and at
+the same time effected an alliance with the colonies, Lafayette returned
+home in January, 1779; on his arrival at Paris he was lionized and
+fêted, and during his stay there he received from the United States
+Congress a sword with massive gold handle and mounting, presented to him
+in appreciation of his services and particularly of his gallantry at the
+battle of Monmouth, on June 28th, in the preceding year. The high
+reputation that he had acquired in America increased his influence at
+home to such a degree that he was able to accomplish the object of his
+mission and procure money and troops from the ministry of war. These
+followed him to this country in the following year, but little was
+accomplished thereby, D'Estaing, the commander of the fleet, being
+blockaded in the harbor of Newport, and Washington being unwilling to
+undertake the contemplated attack on New York, even with the assistance
+of the French military force, without naval co-operation. In February,
+1781, Lafayette was sent with a division into Virginia, where he soon
+found himself arrayed against the British general, Lord Cornwallis. That
+distinguished officer, the best, perhaps, of all on that side of the
+conflict, expected to make short work of his youthful antagonist, but
+Lafayette, who had learned from Washington the art of skilful retreat
+combined with cautious advance, succeeded, after a long series of
+skirmishes, in shutting Cornwallis up in Yorktown. In September, the
+French fleet, under the Count de Grasse, appeared and landed a force of
+3,000 men under the Marquis de St. Simon. Lafayette was urged to
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page223" name="page223"></a>(p. 223)</span> make the assault at once and gain the glory of an important
+capture, but a feeling of honor, combined possibly with prudential
+considerations, impelled him to wait for the arrival of the main allied
+army under Washington and Rochambeau. They came a fortnight later, the
+investment was regularly made, and on October 14th Lafayette
+successfully led the Americans to the assault of one of the redoubts,
+while another was taken by the French under the Baron de Viomesnil. The
+surrender of Cornwallis, with his army of 7,000, took place on the 19th,
+which ended, practically, the American war of independence, though the
+final treaty of peace was not signed till January 20, 1783, the first
+knowledge of which came to Congress by a letter from Lafayette, who had
+returned to Europe in the meantime. Revisiting the United States in
+1784, he was treated with great consideration by his old comrades in
+arms, and the next year he travelled through Russia, Austria, and
+Prussia, in the last of which he attended the military reviews of
+Frederick the Great in company with that renowned soldier.</p>
+
+<p>From this time Lafayette's history is bound up with that of his country.
+Beginning by formulating plans for meliorating the condition of the
+slaves on his plantation in French Guiana, his philanthropic thoughts
+soon turned homeward. He saw France groaning under oppression and the
+people suffering from a thousand antiquated abuses. Some of these he
+succeeded in mitigating, in his capacity of member of the Assembly of
+the Notables, in 1787, but, as nothing of permanent value was
+accomplished by that body, he urged the convocation of the States
+General. In this assemblage, which met at Versailles, on May 4, 1789, he
+sat at first among the nobility, but when the deputies of the people
+declared themselves to be the National Assembly&mdash;afterward called the
+Constituent Assembly&mdash;he was one of the earliest of his order to join
+them and was elected one of the vice-presidents. On July 14th the
+Bastille was taken by the mob, and on the following day Lafayette was
+chosen commandant of the National Guard of Paris; an irregular body,
+partly military, partly police, having no connection with the royal army
+and in full sympathy with the people, from which its ranks were filled.
+On the 17th King Louis XVI. came into the city, where he was received by
+the populace with the liveliest expressions of attachment and escorted
+to the Hôtel de Ville, where Lafayette and Mayor Bailly awaited him at
+the foot of the staircase, up which he passed under an arch of steel
+formed by the uplifted swords of the members of the Municipal Council.
+Bailly offered to the king a tricolor cockade, which had been recently
+adopted as the national emblem, Lafayette, in devising it, having added
+white, the Bourbon color, to the red and blue that were the colors of
+Paris, to show the fidelity of the people to the institution of royalty.
+The king accepted the badge, pinned it to his breast, appeared with it
+on the balcony before the vast throng, and returned to Versailles with
+the feeling, on his part and that of others, that the reconciliation
+between all parties was complete and that the era of popular government
+had begun. Instead of that, the troubles continually increased, and
+Lafayette was placed in a most trying position, equally opposed to the
+encroachments of the destructionists and to the intrigues of the court,
+and longing as eagerly for the retention of the monarchy as for the
+establishment <span class="pagenum"><a id="page224" name="page224"></a>(p. 224)</span> of the constitution. The brutal murder of
+Foulon, the superintendent of the revenue, and of his son-in-law
+Berthier, who were torn in pieces by the enraged populace on the 22d, in
+spite of the commands, entreaties, and even tears of Lafayette, so
+disgusted him that he resigned his command, and resumed it only when the
+sixty districts of Paris agreed to support him in his efforts to
+maintain order. On October 5th a mob of several thousand women set out
+from Paris to march to Versailles, with vague ideas of extorting from
+the National Assembly the passage of laws that should remove all
+distresses, of obtaining in some way a supply of food that should
+relieve the immediate needs of the capital, and of bringing back with
+them the royal family. The National Guard were urgent to accompany the
+women, partly from a desire to protect them in case of a possible
+collision with the royal troops, but still more to bring on a conflict
+with a regiment lately brought from the frontier, and to exterminate the
+body-guard of the king, the members of which had, at a supper given a
+few nights before, been so indiscreet as to trample the tricolor under
+their feet and pin the white cockade to their lapels. Lafayette did all
+in his power to prevent the march of the National Guard, sitting on his
+horse for eight hours in their midst, and refusing all their entreaties
+to give the word of command, till the Municipal Council finally issued
+the order and the troops set forth. Arrived at Versailles he posted one
+of his regiments in different parts of the palace, to protect it in case
+it were really attacked by rioters, and then, in the early morning,
+repairing to his head-quarters in an adjoining street, he threw himself
+on a bed, for a short season of necessary repose. Monarchical writers
+generally have reproached him for this act, calling it his "fatal
+sleep," the source of unnumbered woes, the beginning of the downfall;
+but it is difficult to see wherein he can justly be blamed for yielding,
+wearied out with fatigue, to the imperative demand of nature, after
+providing as far as possible for the preservation of order. Awakened in
+a few minutes by the report that the worst had happened, he hurried to
+the scene and found that the mob, having broken down the iron railings
+of the courtyard, had invaded the palace and massacred two of the
+body-guard, and that the lives of the king and queen were in instant
+peril. With characteristic courage, activity, and address he prevented
+the further effusion of blood, and the entire royal family, together
+with the Assembly, migrated to Paris the same day, escorted by the
+citizen soldiers and a turbulent mob both male and female. July 14,
+1790, was memorable for the Oath of Federation, taken in the Champ de
+Mars, with imposing ceremonies, upon a platform of earth raised by the
+voluntary labors of all the citizens. Lafayette, as representative of
+the nation, and particularly of the militia, was the first to take the
+oath to be faithful to the law and the king and to support the
+constitution then under consideration by the Assembly. With a shout of
+affirmation from all of the National Guard, the taking of the entire
+oath by the president of the Assembly and the king, followed by a roar
+of assent from nearly half a million of spectators, and the joyful
+spreading of the news throughout the country by prearranged signals, the
+dream of peace and harmony came back again, as bright and as fleeting as
+the year before. Three days later the National Guard of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page225" name="page225"></a>(p. 225)</span>
+France, outside of the city, united in an address to Lafayette,
+expressive of their confidence in his ability and his patriotism, and
+regretting their inability to serve under him, for, by the terms of a
+law proposed by himself, the commander of the militia of Paris was to
+have no authority over other troops. In September the municipality made
+a strong appeal to him to revoke his declaration that he would accept no
+pay or salary or indemnity of any kind, but he refused fixedly, saying
+that his fortune was considerable, that it had sufficed for two
+revolutions and that it would be devoted to a third, if one should
+arise, for the benefit of the people. By the death of Mirabeau, April 2,
+1791, the last chance of a compromise between the court party and the
+radicals was taken away. Two weeks later the royal family attempted to
+leave the Tuileries for St. Cloud, in order to pass the Easter holidays
+there and to hear mass in the royal chapel; but the populace blocked the
+way, and even a portion of the National Guard, in a state of
+semi-mutiny, threatened to interfere if the other battalions fired on
+the people. This, nevertheless, Lafayette offered to do, and to force a
+passage at all hazards, but the king positively forbade the shedding of
+blood on his account, and resumed his virtual imprisonment in the
+palace. Lafayette was so chagrined by the seditious behavior of his
+troops that he again threw down his commission, whereupon an
+extraordinary revulsion of feeling took place; the municipality and the
+citizens were terror-stricken lest universal anarchy should ensue, and
+even the National Guard, repentant of their disgraceful conduct, cast
+themselves at the feet of their general, joining their voices to those
+of others in entreating him to resume his office, which, after three
+days, he consented to do, upon promise of obedience in the future.</p>
+
+<a id="img006" name="img006"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img006.jpg" width="600" height="258" alt="" title="">
+<p>The Arch of Steel.</p></div>
+
+<p>This was the meridian of Lafayette's career, when his popularity and his
+influence were at their height. Power we can hardly call it, for that
+implies some voluntary deed of assumption, and he always acted in
+obedience to others, to some authority constituted at least under the
+forms of law, or, in the absence of that, to the sovereign people. From
+this time difficulties thickened around him and he was constantly
+environed by suspicion and by intrigues of all kinds against his
+character and his life, but he never swerved from the line of his duty.
+Not one of the political parties gave him its entire confidence, and
+each in turn conspired against him, only to be baffled by the underlying
+conviction, on the part of the masses, of his supreme patriotism and
+integrity. After the flight of the king and his family, on June 20th,
+Lafayette was violently denounced in the Jacobin club as a friend to
+royalty, and accused of having assisted in the evasion; but the attempt
+to proscribe him in the Assembly failed utterly, and that body appointed
+six commissioners to protect him from the sudden fury of the people. The
+royal fugitives having been stopped at Varennes and brought back to the
+Tuileries on the 25th, he saved them, by his personal efforts, from
+being torn in pieces by the mob, but was compelled to guard them much
+more strictly than before. On July 17th a disorderly assemblage gathered
+in the Champ de Mars to petition for the overthrow of the monarchy, and,
+in the tumult that ensued on the appearance of the troops, Lafayette
+ordered a volley of musketry, whereby <span class="pagenum"><a id="page226" name="page226"></a>(p. 226)</span> the rioters were
+dispersed with a loss of several killed and wounded, but whereby, also,
+while that act of firmness elicited commendation from all lovers of
+order, occasion was given for further intrigues on the part of his
+enemies and the shattering of his influence among the lower classes. A
+momentary gleam of sunshine broke forth in September, when, the king
+having accepted the new constitution, Lafayette took advantage of the
+general state of good feeling thereby produced to propose a
+comprehensive act of amnesty for all offences committed on either side
+during the revolution, which was passed by the Constituent Assembly just
+before its final adjournment on the 30th. On that day he resigned,
+permanently, the command of the National Guard, and retired to his
+estate at Chavaignac, being followed by the most gratifying testimonials
+of public regard, among them a sword and a marble statue of Washington,
+presented by the city of Paris, and a sword cast from one of the bolts
+of the Bastille, given by his old soldiers. Contrary to his personal
+wishes, his friends and his patriotism persuaded him, in November, to
+stand as a candidate for the mayoralty of Paris, with the result that
+might have been foreseen, for Pétion, being supported both by the
+Jacobins and by the court party, was elected by a large majority. This
+defeat did not prevent Lafayette's appointment, a month later, to the
+command of one of the three armies formed to defend the frontier against
+an expected invasion of the Austrians, the rank of lieutenant-general
+being given to him, with the exalted honor of marshal of France. War was
+declared against Austria, April 20, 1792, and hostilities began, but
+even the active service in which he was engaged could not keep his
+thoughts from the political condition of the country, and on June 16th
+he wrote to the Legislative Assembly, which had succeeded the
+Constituent in the previous autumn, a letter in which he pointed out the
+dangers that menaced the nation and denounced the Jacobins as the
+faction whose growing power was full of peril to the state. Four days
+later the mob invaded the Tuileries and passed riotously through all the
+rooms, insulting in the grossest manner the royal family, who were
+compelled to stand before them and undergo this humiliation for three
+hours. On hearing of this event Lafayette hurried from his camp and
+appeared before the Assembly, entreating the punishment of the
+instigators of the outrage. His sublime audacity in thus opposing his
+own personality to the machinations of his enemies, and that, too,
+before a body already irritated by his unasked advice, paralyzed the
+fury of his adversaries, while his eloquence charmed the hearts of his
+hearers; but all was in vain, and the only result of this heroic action
+was that a decree of accusation was brought in against him, which was
+rejected by a vote of 406 to 224. Upon the massacre of the Swiss Guards,
+on August 10th, followed by the actual deposition and imprisonment of
+the king, Lafayette sounded his army to ascertain if they would march to
+Paris in defence of constitutional government, but he found them
+vacillating and untrustworthy. His own dismissal from command came soon
+after: orders were sent for his arrest, and nothing remained for him but
+flight.</p>
+
+<p>On August 19th he left the army and attempted to pass through Belgium on
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page227" name="page227"></a>(p. 227)</span> his way to England, but he was captured by Austrian soldiers
+near the frontier. He protested that he no longer held rank as an
+officer in the army and should be considered as a private citizen; but
+his rights were not respected in either capacity, for he was not treated
+as a prisoner of war neither was he arraigned as a criminal. On the
+contrary, without any charges being preferred against him, and without
+the formality of a trial of any kind, he was immediately thrown into
+prison and was detained in various Belgian, Prussian, and Austrian jails
+and fortresses for more than five years, the last three being passed in
+close confinement at Olmutz. An unsuccessful attempt at escape increased
+the severity of his detention, and he nearly lost his life through the
+hardships and privations that he endured, till his wife and daughters
+came, in 1795, and voluntarily shared his incarceration. The only reason
+for the savage treatment that he received, unjustified by any forms of
+international, of military, or of criminal law, seems to have lain in
+the fact that he had been a member of the National Assembly and
+prominent in the constitutional struggle for liberty. A feeling of
+revenge, as mean as it was groundless&mdash;for he had done everything in his
+power to protect the dignity as well as the life of Marie Antoinette,
+the sister of the Austrian emperor&mdash;joined with a fear that other
+peoples might follow the lead of the French and overthrow monarchical
+institutions unless deterred by some world-shocking example, formed the
+mainspring of this atrocious procedure. Efforts were made in this
+country and in England to procure the release of the prisoner, but no
+governmental action was taken in that direction, the United States
+Congress declining to pass a resolution to that effect, so that
+President Washington was left alone in his unceasing attempts, by
+instructions to our ministers abroad and by a personal letter to the
+emperor, to repay some of the debt that he and the whole country owed to
+our adopted citizen. It was not till the successes of the French
+republican armies enabled General Bonaparte, at the instance of the
+Directory, to insist upon the liberation of Lafayette as one of the
+conditions of the treaty of Campo Formio, that he was discharged on
+September 19, 1797, the Austrian Government pretending that this was
+done out of regard for the United States of America. Passing into
+Denmark and Holland he resided in those countries for two years, when he
+returned to France only to receive from Bonaparte a significant message
+recommending to him a very quiet life, a piece of advice which, as it
+accorded with his own desires, he followed, settling down at Lagrange,
+an estate inherited by his wife, as his own property had been
+confiscated by the National Convention, which had succeeded the
+Legislative Assembly. True to the principles that he had always
+entertained, he cast his vote, in 1802, with less than nine thousand
+others, and in opposition to the suffrages of more than three-and-a-half
+millions, against the decree to make Bonaparte consul for life, writing
+after his name on the polling register the statement that he could not
+vote for such a measure till public freedom was sufficiently guaranteed.
+This insured the continued displeasure of the military despot, who
+revenged himself by refusing to Lafayette's only son, George Washington,
+the promotion that he had earned by his brilliant exploits in the army.
+President Jefferson's offer <span class="pagenum"><a id="page228" name="page228"></a>(p. 228)</span> in 1803, of the governorship of
+the province of Louisiana, just after its purchase from France, was
+rejected by Lafayette, who continued in his retirement through the time
+of the empire and after the first restoration of the Bourbons, till the
+return from Elba, in March, 1815, of Napoleon, who used every exertion
+to conciliate him and win his support. All these overtures he declined,
+but, on the other hand, accepted an election to the popular branch of
+the Legislature, of which he was chosen vice-president. After the battle
+of Waterloo, on June 18th, Napoleon returned to Paris and proposed to
+his council the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies and the
+assumption of absolutely dictatorial power; a desperate project which
+was frustrated only by the alertness, vigor, and energy of Lafayette,
+whose eloquent appeals induced the Legislature to compel the final
+abdication of the emperor, under the alternative threat of forfeiture
+and expulsion. Five commissioners, with Lafayette at the head, appointed
+by the chambers, proceeded to the head-quarters of the allied
+sovereigns, at Haguenau, to treat for peace; but, while negotiations
+were pending, the foreign armies pushed on toward the capital, and he
+returned on July 3d, to find that Paris had capitulated and was at the
+mercy of the conquerors, who dictated their own terms, forcibly
+dissolved the Corps Législatif, and replaced Louis XVIII. on the throne.
+Lafayette retired to Lagrange, but was again elected, in 1817, a deputy,
+in spite of the strenuous opposition of the Government, and exerted his
+influence in favor of liberal measures, though with indifferent success.
+In 1824, on the invitation of President Monroe, he revisited this
+country, travelled through every State, was received with the highest
+honors by Congress (which voted him $200,000 and a township of land for
+his services), by legislatures, by colleges, by corporations of cities,
+by societies of all kinds by his surviving comrades of the revolution,
+and by the whole nation; took part in the laying of the corner-stone of
+the Bunker Hill Monument June 17, 1825, and sailed for home in
+September, on the United States frigate Brandywine, which had been put
+at his disposal by the Government. Soon after his return to France he
+was re-elected to the Corps Législatif, and served as a member for most
+of the remainder of his life. The stupid tyranny of King Charles X.
+having caused an outbreak of the Parisians in July, 1830, Lafayette
+unhesitatingly espoused the popular cause, and, though nearly
+seventy-three years old, accepted the command of the National Guard;
+after a conflict of three days the royal troops gave way, the king
+abdicated, to be succeeded by the Duke of Orleans as King Louis
+Philippe, and Lafayette had the satisfaction of contributing largely to
+the establishment of what he had advocated so strongly forty years
+before&mdash;a constitutional monarchy. He died at his home, in the country,
+on May 20, 1834, but his remains were taken to Paris for interment, and
+as the funeral train passed through the streets the lamentations on
+every hand attested the affection and the sorrow of the people. Few men
+have lived who present a figure so attractive to the eye of the student;
+fewer still, so prominent on the theatre of history, who will bear, with
+so little possibility of censure, the closest scrutiny, the severest
+judgment. His actions were visible to all the world, his motives were
+transparent, his sentiments were unconcealed, his <span class="pagenum"><a id="page229" name="page229"></a>(p. 229)</span> life was
+blameless. To the physical endowments of dignity of person and
+resistless charm of manner he added all desirable qualities of head and
+heart, a dauntless courage, an enthusiasm beautiful and yet consistent,
+a sublime patriotism, a disinterested generosity. If, with all these, he
+seems to have failed of achieving the highest success, it was because
+not of what he lacked but of what he possessed in the fullest degree, a
+lofty integrity that forbade him to pander to the passions of the mob, a
+supreme regard for the rights of the community and of the individual. He
+might have snatched the sovereign power, but in doing it he would have
+lost his self-respect. In place, then, of glittering success, he
+obtained the quiet admiration of mankind and the loving gratitude of two
+nations.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig003" name="sig003"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig003.jpg" width="250" height="96" alt="Author signature. William F. Peck." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>CHARLOTTE CORDAY<a id="footnotetag6" name="footnotetag6"></a><a href="#footnote6" title="Go to footnote 6"><span class="small">[6]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Oliver Optic</span><br>
+
+(1768-1793)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img007" name="img007"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img007.jpg" width="200" height="287" alt="A guillotine." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>The despotism of Louis XIV. and the exhaustion of the finances by his
+wars and his reckless extravagance had reduced France to a very unhappy
+condition. His son, the Grand-Dauphin, died four years before his
+father, and his grandson, the Duke of Burgundy, a year later. Louis the
+Great was therefore succeeded by his great-grandson, Louis XV. During
+this reign the nation continued on the decline. He was followed by his
+grandson, Louis XVI., a better man than his immediate predecessor, but
+too weak to carry out the reforms necessary to restore the prosperity of
+the nation. Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and many other writers, as
+well as the influence of the American Revolution, had fostered
+democratic ideas among the people, for the government was reeking with
+abuses.</p>
+
+<p>The parliament had not assembled for three-quarters of a century; but
+representatives of the people met in 1789, in spite of the opposition of
+the king. The extreme of license followed the extreme of absolutism. The
+king opposed the Constituent Assembly, for this body changed its name
+several times, till the political conflict ended in the death by the
+guillotine of Louis XVI., and later by the execution of his queen, Marie
+Antoinette. For every two hundred and fifty of the gross population
+there was a member of the nobility who was exempted from the payment of
+any land tax, though this kind of property was almost exclusively in
+their possession, and from many other taxes and burdens, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page230" name="page230"></a>(p. 230)</span> which
+all the more heavily weighed down the great body of the people. The
+latter had a long list of genuine grievances which the king and his
+advisers refused to remedy.</p>
+
+<p>The revolution became an accomplished fact in the capture and
+destruction of the Bastille, on July 14, 1789, which day is still
+celebrated as a national holiday in France. It had been for hundreds of
+years a prison for political offenders, and was regarded by the people
+as the principal emblem and instrument of tyranny. The population became
+as intemperate as their rulers had been, thousands perished by the
+guillotine, and the reign of terror was established. The National
+Convention proclaimed a republic; but this body was divided by
+conflicting opinions, and had not the power to inaugurate their ideal
+government. Blood flowed in rivers, and the reaction was infinitely more
+terrible than the tyranny which had produced it.</p>
+
+<p>The Convention was divided into at least four parties, though the lines
+which separated them were not very clearly defined. The Jacobins were
+the most prominent, and the most radical. It had its origin in the
+Jacobin Club, formed in Versailles, taking its name from a convent in
+which it met. This organization soon spread through its branches all
+over France, and its party was the most violent and blood-thirsty in the
+convention. Danton, Robespierre, Marat, Desmoulins, and other desperate
+leaders were of this faction.</p>
+
+<p>The Girondists were next in numbers and influence. They were the
+moderate republicans of the time, though at first they were inclined to
+accept the constitution, and favor a limited monarchy. Its name came
+from the earliest leaders of the party who were representatives from the
+department of the Gironde. Its members labored to check the violence and
+bloodshed of the times, and might be called the respectable party of the
+period. Unfortunately they were in the minority, and all the members of
+the party in the Convention who did not escape, were arrested,
+convicted, and guillotined.</p>
+
+<p>The Montagnards (mountaineers) or Montagne (Mountain) was the term
+applied to the Democrats holding the most extreme views, though its
+members were also Jacobins and Cordeliers. Among them were the most
+blood-thirsty, unreasonable, and intolerant men of the time, for Danton,
+Robespierre, Marat, St. Just, and others of that stamp, affiliated with
+them. They took their name from the fact that they were grouped together
+in the uppermost seats of the chamber of the Convention. The Cordeliers
+was hardly more than another name for a club of the same men, so called
+from the chapel of a Franciscan monastery where they held their
+meetings.</p>
+
+<a id="img008" name="img008"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img008.jpg" width="400" height="541" alt="" title="">
+<p>Charlotte Corday and Marat.</p></div>
+
+<p>Jean Paul Marat was one of the most prominent personages of the
+Revolution, whose infamy will continue to be perpetuated down to
+generations yet to come, with other of his red-handed associates. He was
+a Frenchman, though he spent considerable time in Holland and Great
+Britain, where he practised medicine, having studied the profession at
+Bordeaux. He made some reputation as a political writer, and in
+Edinburgh obtained a degree. It is believed that he was convicted for
+stealing, and sentenced to five years imprisonment at Oxford under
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page231" name="page231"></a>(p. 231)</span> several <i>aliases</i>. Perhaps he was sincere in his opinions,
+and he threw himself vigorously into the work of the Revolution in
+Paris, issuing inflammatory pamphlets, which he caused to be printed and
+circulated secretly. He established an infamous journal, attacking the
+king and all his supporters, and especially the Girondists, whose
+moderation disgusted him. His virulence caused him to be intensely
+hated, and twice he was compelled to flee to London, and once to hide in
+the sewers. In the latter he contracted a loathsome disease of the skin
+which soon began to eat away his life; and his sufferings from it
+intensified his zeal and his hatred.</p>
+
+<p>Marat was elected to the Convention as a delegate from Paris. Perhaps he
+was to a greater degree responsible for the September massacre than any
+other man. While he was dying of his malady he was urging on his
+fanatical measures, and declared that most of the members of the
+Convention, Mirabeau first, ought to be executed. His most virulent
+hatred was directed against the Girondists, whose execution he advocated
+with all the venom of his nature. Though he could write only when seated
+in a bath, he continued to hurl his invectives against them, impatient
+for the guillotine to do its gory work upon them.</p>
+
+<p>The avenger was at hand. Charlotte Corday d'Armont was the granddaughter
+of Corneille, the great tragic poet of France. Though of noble descent,
+she was born in a cottage, for her father was a country gentleman so
+poor that he could not support his family. His daughters worked in the
+fields like the peasants, till he was compelled to abandon them. Then
+they obtained admission to a convent in Caen, where they were received
+on account of their birth and their poverty. The library furnished
+Charlotte abundant reading matter, and she read works on philosophy,
+though she also rather inflated her imagination by the perusal of
+romances, which had some influence on her after life.</p>
+
+<p>When monasteries and convents were abolished, she was turned loose upon
+the world; but her aunt, as poor almost as her father, took the young
+woman, now nineteen years old, to her home in Caen. Charlotte had
+developed into a beautiful girl, rather tall, honest, and innocent. She
+had imbibed republican sentiments from her father in spite of his
+nobility, and Caen was the head-quarters of the Girondists. She was
+familiar with the details of the struggle between the Jacobins and the
+Girondists, and they inspired her with an intense feeling against the
+persecutors of her people, as she regarded the latter. The members of
+that party who had been driven from Paris instructed her. She was a
+woman; but if she had been a queen she had the nerve to rule a nation
+and fight its battles.</p>
+
+<p>A tremendous purpose took possession of her being. It was not prompted
+by the spirit of revenge. She was mistaken, but she believed that the
+removal of Marat was the remedy for the evils of the time; and this
+became the work of her life, upon which she entered, fully conscious
+that her path ended at an ignominious grave. She had an admirer in a
+young man by the name of Franquelin, and though she favored him she
+sacrificed her attachment to what she regarded as a lofty, even a
+sublime duty. She had the means to proceed to Paris and she <span class="pagenum"><a id="page232" name="page232"></a>(p. 232)</span>
+went by the coach. She deceived her aunt, her father, and her sisters
+with the statement that she was going to England in search of
+remunerative employment. She went to a hotel in the great city which had
+been recommended to her in Caen.</p>
+
+<p>A friend had given her a letter of recommendation to Duperret, a
+Girondist deputy, by the aid of which she hoped to get into the presence
+of Marat. She had arranged a plan for the assassination of the brawling
+fanatic, and it was to take place at the celebration of the anniversary
+of the destruction of the Bastille, July 14th, on the Champ de Mars. She
+desired to do the deed as publicly as possible, not to make it
+sensational, but in order to produce the stronger impression upon the
+minds of the people. The postponement of the celebration, for the
+suppression of the rebellion among the Vendeans, prevented the execution
+of her first plan, and she then decided to strike down her victim in his
+seat at the "summit of the mountain," in the midst of the victim's
+accomplices. Then she learned that Marat was confined to his lodgings by
+his malady. She promptly determined to confront him in his own home.</p>
+
+<p>She wrote a note to him, professing to be a sufferer at the hands of the
+Girondists, asking for an appointment at his house. He made it, but was
+unable to keep it. She wrote another note, and then went to the house in
+the Rue de l'École de Médecine, now a part of the Boulevard St. Germain.
+The woman with whom Marat lived refused to admit her, and she crowded up
+a short stairway. Her intended victim heard the altercation, and
+suspecting it was the person who had sent him two notes, he called out
+to Catherine Everard to admit her. Charlotte had visited the Palais
+Royal and purchased a knife, which was concealed in her bosom in
+readiness to do the deed.</p>
+
+<p>Marat, though at the height of his pernicious influence, lived in mean
+and squalid apartments, in a sort of pride of poverty as "the friend of
+the people." In spite of his disease, which compelled him to work in a
+bath, he was always busy. The room was littered with papers and
+pamphlets. He was only five feet in height, with a naturally
+disagreeable face, increased by his malady. At the very time his visitor
+entered his den, he was making out on a board before him a list of
+Girondists to be executed. She would not look at him, but she told him a
+story she had invented, and gave him the names of Girondist refugees at
+Caen; to which he replied as he wrote them down, that "they should have
+the guillotine before they were a week older."</p>
+
+<p>At these words, as though they had steeled her arm, she drew the knife
+from her bosom, and with superhuman power, plunged it to the hilt and to
+the heart of Marat. He called for help and then expired. Assistance
+came, and the house was thronged with National Guards and policemen.
+They were necessary to save the murderess from the fury of those who
+forced their way into the house. She was arrested, and conveyed in the
+same carriage in which she had come to the Conciergerie. All Paris
+groaned and howled.</p>
+
+<p>She had the form of a trial, and the guillotine quickly followed it. Her
+fortitude did not forsake her at any time, and she died as firmly as any
+martyr ever <span class="pagenum"><a id="page233" name="page233"></a>(p. 233)</span> went to the stake. Her beauty and her heroism
+excited the sympathy of the crowd, but they could not save her. She was
+a mistaken heroine, but her courage and fortitude were sublime.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig004" name="sig004"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig004.jpg" width="300" height="79" alt="Author signature. William S. Adams." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>MADAME ROLAND<a id="footnotetag7" name="footnotetag7"></a><a href="#footnote7" title="Go to footnote 7"><span class="small">[7]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Ella Wheeler Wilcox</span><br>
+
+(1754-1793)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img009" name="img009"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img009.jpg" width="250" height="325" alt="Madame Roland." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>France has produced many remarkable women; perhaps no other country can
+boast such an array of illustrious names; they shine from the pages of
+French history like fixed stars from the firmament. Among them, down the
+long vista of a hundred years, brilliant and beautiful, shines the name
+of Madame Roland, the spirit of the great French Revolution personified.</p>
+
+<p>Striking beauty, great genius, and wonderful courage in the hour of
+martyrdom, rendered this woman an unusual character in an unusual epoch.
+Surrounded by deceit, she was honest and fearless. In the midst of
+immorality and license, she was pure, and brave enough to resist
+temptation which came from without and from within, and she went to the
+scaffold with an untarnished name and soul.</p>
+
+<p>Manon Philipon, as Madame Roland was known in her childhood, was born in
+Paris in the year 1754. Her father was a worker in enamel, who thrived
+well enough in his art when he was content to toil at it, but a restless
+spirit of speculation led him into ventures which brought him neither
+profit nor renown.</p>
+
+<p>Manon's beauty was a direct inheritance from both father and mother.
+Gratien Philipon was a handsome man, and vain and frivolous as he was
+handsome; but his beautiful wife was serious-minded, and much the
+superior of her husband in intellect as well as morals. Of seven
+children born to this couple, only one lived&mdash;Manon, the subject of our
+sketch&mdash;who inherited the combined <span class="pagenum"><a id="page234" name="page234"></a>(p. 234)</span> beauty of both parents,
+with the rectitude and high ideals of the mother. But there lies no
+explanation of inheritance from either father or mother to make us
+understand how the child of these common people became at nine years of
+age a student of Plutarch, Tasso, and Voltaire, and a philosopher at the
+age of eleven. It requires a deeper law than that of heredity to explain
+these things.</p>
+
+<p>At ten, Manon developed a strongly religious tendency, which was
+fostered, no doubt, by daily studying the "Lives of the Saints." While
+reading the accounts of martyrs who had died at the stake rather than
+resign their faith, the child often regretted that she had not lived in
+those "good old days," so happy a thing it seemed to her to die for
+one's principles. This privilege was granted her in after-years,
+strangely enough; and she proved as courageous in reality as she had in
+childhood imagined herself capable of being under similar circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Manon's religious feelings were culminated by a request made to her
+mother, in a paroxysm of tears, that she might be placed in a convent to
+prepare herself for her first communion; accordingly, she was taken to
+the Convent of the "Sisters of the Congregation" in May, 1765, when she
+was eleven years old. Side by side with this nunnery, where the
+precocious child passed one of the happiest epochs of her life, stood
+the prison which was to immure her in later years. Should such a
+circumstance and situation be unfolded in the pages of fiction, we would
+call it strained and unnatural.</p>
+
+<p>During the year Manon passed in the convent, she made the acquaintance
+of two sisters, Henrietta and Sophie Cannet, who were allied to the
+nobility; and she afterward attributed her facility in writing to the
+correspondence with the younger of these sisters, which continued
+without interruption over more than a decade of years. In her memoirs,
+written under the shadow of the guillotine, she says, "In the gloom of a
+prison, in the midst of political storms, how shall I recall to my mind,
+and how describe, the rapture, the tranquillity I enjoyed at that
+period; but when I review the events of my life, I find it difficult to
+assign to circumstances that variety and that plenitude of affection
+which have so strongly marked every point of its duration, and left me
+so clear a remembrance of every place at which I have been."</p>
+
+<p>After she left the convent, she found her passion for reading unabated,
+and as her father's library was limited, she was obliged to borrow and
+hire books; from these she made copious extracts and abstracts which
+formed her valuable habit of reflection upon what she had read.</p>
+
+<p>Her first feelings of contempt and bitterness toward the aristocrats
+were roused by the air of condescension which the Cannets exhibited to
+her in her occasional visits to Sophie. They were stupid and arrogant
+people, but they made her realize that the daughter of an artisan was
+not on equal footing with people allied to the nobility, albeit she was
+a prodigy of beauty, learning, and talent, and they the dullest of
+beings.</p>
+
+<p>"I endeavored," she says, "to think with hope that everything was right,
+but my pride told me things were ordered better in a republic." So, as
+early as at <span class="pagenum"><a id="page235" name="page235"></a>(p. 235)</span> the age of fourteen, we find this remarkable being
+philosophizing upon republics, and taking part in mind against the evils
+and injustice fostered by monarchies.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Roland wandered from prescribed creeds, and became a liberal in
+her religious ideas. She has been called an Atheist, but every line she
+writes, and her life of self-sacrifice, disprove this assertion. Her
+"one prayer," to which she says she confined herself, is, to my mind,
+sublime with beautiful and practical religion.</p>
+
+<p>"O Thou who hast placed me on the earth, enable me to fulfil my
+destination in the manner most conformable to the Divine will, and most
+beneficial to my fellow-creatures."</p>
+
+<p>I can imagine no more perfect religious faith, no more complete
+submission to, and acknowledgment of, a Supreme Power than this prayer
+contains. It strikes me as far more devout and respectful than the
+prayers of many people who endeavor to dictate to God and direct Him
+what to do and what not to do, what to bestow and what to withhold.</p>
+
+<p>She writes of her religious agitations with great reluctance to Sophie
+Cannet, fearful of disturbing the serenity of her friend's convictions;
+but she continued to conform to her mother's religious ideas during that
+good woman's life, and even afterward she kept up the forms of
+Catholicism for the sake of a valued family servant who was devoted to
+her.</p>
+
+<p>This delicate consideration of the feelings of others has been mistaken
+by some bigoted minds for deceit or vacillation on the part of Madame
+Roland; as if such a being were capable of either.</p>
+
+<p>We owe all our knowledge of her early private life to the voluminous
+correspondence between her and Sophie Cannet; to this friend she wrote
+those long, journal-like letters, in which one young girl often pours
+out the inmost secrets of her heart and soul to another; but, unlike the
+letters of the ordinary girl, Manon's contained criticisms of the books
+she had read, and discussions of philosophical subjects, which bear
+evidence to her wonderful precocity of thought and feeling in her
+"teens."</p>
+
+<p>Originality, unselfishness, genius of the rarest order, are all
+displayed in these letters; already had her mind grasped some great
+truths which it requires the average philosopher half a century to
+discover, when at seventeen, she says, "Man is the epitome of the
+universe. The revolutions of the world without are an image of those
+which take place in his own soul."</p>
+
+<p>Upon the news of the mortal illness of Louis XV., she writes to Sophie
+this strongly humanitarian passage: "Although the obscurity of my birth,
+name, and position seem to preclude me from taking any interest in the
+government, yet the common weal touches me in spite of it. My country is
+something to me, and the love I bear it is unquestionable. How could it
+be otherwise when nothing in the world is indifferent to me? A love of
+humanity unites me to everything that breathes. A Caribbean interests
+me; the fate of a Kaffir goes to my heart. Alexander wished for more
+worlds to conquer. I could wish for more to love."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page236" name="page236"></a>(p. 236)</span> In spite of her philosophy, her seriousness, and her learning,
+however, Manon Philipon was a girl, and a charming one; and we learn in
+her letters to Sophie how she was pestered with lovers of low and high
+degree, during her long maidenhood. I might better say with proposals
+for her hand, since, as we know, French custom does not permit the
+"love-making" which American girls consider their natural prerogative.</p>
+
+<p>Manon was so beautiful, brilliant, and magnetic, that when she went out
+to promenade with her father, she was greeted with admiring glances and
+remarks; and from the fruit vender of whom she made occasional
+purchases, and the butcher who served the family with joints, to dancing
+and drawing masters, up along the line to merchants, professional, and
+literary men, she seemed to fascinate and attract with no effort on her
+own part.</p>
+
+<p>Each one in turn asked for her hand and was rejected; and a host of
+others followed, to meet a similar fate, until her father threatened to
+marry her to the first stranger who crossed his portal, whether either
+one wished it or no. She says in her memoirs, "The respectable character
+of my mother, the appearance of some fortune, and my being an only
+child, made the project of matrimony a tempting one to a number of
+persons who were strangers to me. The greater part, finding it difficult
+to obtain an introduction, adopted the expedient of writing to my
+father. These letters were always shown to me. I wrote the answers,
+which my father faithfully copied. I was much amused at acting the part
+of my own father, and dismissed my suitors with dignity, leaving no room
+for resentment or hope. Here began to break out those dissensions with
+my father which lasted ever after. He loved and respected commerce, I
+despised it; and he was much concerned at my rejection of suitors who
+possessed any fortune."</p>
+
+<p>After the death of Madame Philipon, which occurred in her daughter's
+twenty-first year, Manon's life at home became almost unbearable. Her
+extreme grief impaired her health, and anxiety and mortification were
+added by the excesses and frivolous extravagances into which her father
+plunged. He formed associations with people of bad character, and took
+to gambling. Manon strove to make herself an agreeable companion, and to
+entertain him at home, but the attempt was futile. She filled her lonely
+hours with study, and with writing letters to Sophie. One day a tall,
+thin gentleman, bald and yellow, past forty, and looking older,
+presented a letter of introduction from Miss Cannet.</p>
+
+<p>It was M. Roland, an austere philosopher, of an ancient family, to whom
+Sophie had often referred. Manon admired his intellect and his
+respectability; and when, after some two or three years, he made an
+offer of marriage, she was ready to accept; but M. Philipon bluntly and
+insolently refused his consent, through a strong personal dislike which
+he had conceived for the severe moralist and philosopher.</p>
+
+<p>Manon could not marry against her father's wishes, but she could leave
+the home now so distasteful to her. She had saved only a small sum from
+her mother's fortune, amounting to about one hundred dollars per year.
+With this, she <span class="pagenum"><a id="page237" name="page237"></a>(p. 237)</span> retired to the Convent of the Congregation, and
+shut herself up with her books, and received only her old friends.</p>
+
+<p>M. Roland, for whose sake she had taken so decisive a step, was far from
+an ardent lover in his conduct at this juncture. He wrote her
+affectionately, but he made no reference to his proposal of marriage
+until six months had passed. Then he came to Paris, had an interview
+through iron gratings, and expressed himself determined to make her his
+wife. Since she had left her father's roof, she was at liberty to accept
+his somewhat tardy proposal, and she emerged from the convent to become
+Madame Roland.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen that M. Roland was not an ardent lover, and it is readily
+understood that this beautiful, intense girl, in the very prime of young
+womanhood, was not in love with him. She felt only esteem for his
+virtues, and admiration for his intellect. But she was twenty-five years
+old, and virtually homeless; of all the score of men who had sought her
+hand in marriage, no one had ever stirred her heart, and she married,
+believing, no doubt, that this cold regard and high admiration which the
+character of M. Roland elicited, was all that she could feel for any
+man.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the thunders of the Revolution shook the world, that
+her heart awoke to real passion; and even then, in a situation where
+hundreds of women who have professed greater religious fervor, have
+fallen, she conquered herself, and virtually died to protect her
+husband's life.</p>
+
+<p>During the first year of their marriage, the Rolands lived in Paris.
+Manon had imagined a happy association with her friends, the Cannets;
+but her husband was morbidly jealous of these friends, and extracted a
+promise from her that she would see them as little as possible. She
+became his amanuensis and secretary, and scarcely ever left his side.</p>
+
+<p>During the next ten years we find her passing the greater part of her
+time in the Clos de la Platière, an ancient and humble country-seat
+belonging to the Roland family. Here, with her taxing domestic duties,
+the exactions of her husband, the care of her child Eudora, the
+tyrannies of her aged mother-in-law, this wonderful woman had little
+opportunity for the exercise of her talents.</p>
+
+<p>It seems strange to think of this beautiful martyr, whose name is a
+synonym for all that is grand and heroic, passing the best years of her
+womanhood in preparing dishes for the appetite of a dyspeptic husband,
+in looking after house-linen, and arranging lessons for a child. Matilda
+Blind says "This affects one with something of the ludicrous
+disproportion of making use of the fires of Etna to fry one's eggs by."</p>
+
+<p>Yet Madame Roland performed these and less agreeable duties as
+cheerfully and as perfectly as she had performed her chosen tasks in the
+convent years before. Women doctors were not known in those days, but
+the genius of Madame Roland embraced a knowledge of medicine with other
+things; and she often went three leagues to relieve a sick peasant, and
+was ever ready to sacrifice herself for the good of others.</p>
+
+<p>There was very little happiness for her in the companionship of her
+husband. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page238" name="page238"></a>(p. 238)</span> He was twenty-two years her senior, and possessed an
+imperious temper and an exacting nature. But the most ardent wife could
+not have better performed her duty to the most lovable of husbands.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally democratic in her feelings and sympathies, Madame Roland took
+the keenest interest in the progress of the Revolution; from her quiet
+retreat she studied its leading members, and when, in 1791, her husband
+was chosen deputy to the Constituent Assembly, she accompanied him to
+Paris, and their apartments became the rendezvous for such men as
+Brissot, Buzot, Danton, Robespierre, Pétion, and many more, who met to
+confer with one another and to exchange ideas and suggestions. Madame
+Roland sat apart with her embroidery and listened. Of these meetings she
+speaks thus in her "Memoirs": "Good ideas were started and excellent
+principles maintained; but there was no path marked out, no determinate
+point toward which each person should direct his views. Sometimes for
+very vexation, I could have boxed the ears of these philosophers."</p>
+
+<p>Had not her sex precluded this silent spirit of the Girondists from
+taking part in these counsels, if, instead of acting second hand through
+her husband, she could have taken the lead, as her genius, perception,
+honesty, and courage entitled her to do, who knows that she might not
+have averted the disasters which befell the party through its
+dissensions.</p>
+
+<p>In March, 1792, Roland was elected minister of the interior; and Madame
+Roland presided over the establishment that had been sumptuously fitted
+up for Madame Necker. Roland became the idol of the patriotic party, and
+was enchanted with his excellent position. He urged upon King Louis
+XVI., in whom he reposed great faith, the necessity of a decree against
+the priesthood, and the establishment of a camp in the suburbs of Paris.
+Louis demurred, Roland insisted in the famous letter written by his
+wife, and placed in the king's hands June 11th. This letter became
+immensely popular. The Assembly ordered it to be printed and copies sent
+to all departments, together with expressions of national regret at the
+discharge of Roland and his friends, which the letter caused. But they
+were recalled to office after the dreadful August 10th.</p>
+
+<p>Twice a week Madame Roland gave a dinner to fifteen of her husband's
+colleagues, with whom he wished to converse. No other lady was present.
+The Girondists were at the apex of society, and Madame Roland was the
+life and impetus of the party. She endeavored to infuse its members with
+her hatred of false pride and old prejudices, and with her desire to
+establish a liberal democracy. Always enthusiastic, and vexed with the
+lack of unity and direct purpose in the Assembly, she was over-zealous
+in some of her suggestions.</p>
+
+<p>Among the brilliant men whom she entertained at these dinners, was one,
+young, handsome, elegant, and refined, whose many manly qualities woke
+in her heart that long-delayed passion which a nature so ardent must
+sometime feel. This man was Buzot; and he was as irresistibly drawn to
+this beautiful, brilliant woman as the magnet to the steel.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Roland was at this time thirty-eight years old; her brilliant
+color <span class="pagenum"><a id="page239" name="page239"></a>(p. 239)</span> and her open expression made her look much younger, and
+her tall, finely developed form, her splendid eyes and engaging smile,
+charmed and attracted all who came near her. But though domestic life
+and morality were held at the lowest possible value in those chaotic
+days, and each man made a law for himself, Madame Roland never wavered
+in her loyalty and devotion to the man whose name she bore. Only through
+her remarkable letters written to Buzot from her prison cell, and never
+made public till 1863, does the glory and intensity of her hopeless
+passion display itself.</p>
+
+<p>From the very first, Madame Roland had distrusted Danton. It was not
+long before her intuitions proved correct, for Danton soon showed his
+jealousy and dislike of the minister, whom he found too honest to tamper
+with. He feared, too, the penetration, frankness, and genius of Roland's
+wife. Men who saw the insidious, selfish qualities of Danton, began to
+cultivate and conciliate him out of fear of his enmity.</p>
+
+<p>Robespierre, whom Madame Roland had at first believed in as an honest
+friend to liberty, became an ally of Danton and Marat, and Roland soon
+realized that it was not the monarchists he had to contend against, but
+the new party headed by these dissenting Girondists, who were savage
+with a thirst for human blood.</p>
+
+<p>The Rolands were accused of trying to establish an aristocracy of talent
+on the ruins of a monarchical aristocracy; their semi-weekly dinners
+were represented as sumptuous feasts where, like a new Circe, Madame
+Roland strove to corrupt the unfortunates who partook of her banquets.</p>
+
+<p>She was called before the Convention December 7th, to listen to the
+charges against her; her eloquence won the admiration of even her
+enemies. But her safety was in danger, and she was obliged to sleep with
+a pistol under her pillow for fear of the outrages of desperadoes who
+lurked about her house.</p>
+
+<p>The strife between the two parties grew more bitter, and the downfall of
+Roland had been determined upon by his savage opponents, once his
+fawning friends and colleagues. An attempt was made to arrest Roland by
+six armed men, deputies of the Insurrectionists. He replied that he did
+not recognize their authority, and refused to follow them. Madame Roland
+at once set off for the Tuileries, where the Insurrectionists, more
+cruel and blood-thirsty than the deposed Monarchists, were in session.
+At the door the sentinels forbade her to enter. Obliged to return home
+without having been enabled to address the Convention, as she hoped to
+do, she found that her husband had taken refuge in the house of a
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>She sought him out, embraced him, and returned once more to the
+Tuileries in another vain hope of arousing their former friends to
+resolute action. But she was obliged to return to her apartment in the
+evening, without having accomplished anything. Late that night she was
+torn from her child and her home, and cast into the Prison of the
+Abbaye, from which she was set at liberty a month later, and wild with
+happiness, allowed to reach her own door; but as she attempted to enter
+she was again seized and conveyed to the Prison of Sainte Pélagie. The
+respite had only been given in malice to render her second incarceration
+more bitter.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page240" name="page240"></a>(p. 240)</span> Under the same roof were murderers and women of the town; and
+in the morning, when the cell-doors were opened, the scum of the earth,
+as one authority tells us, collected in the corridor. On each side of
+this corridor (the only place where the prisoners could take exercise)
+were small cells, and one of these, separated only by thin walls from
+the most depraved beings, whose vile language was constantly audible to
+her ears, this refined and elegant woman was forced to occupy. She
+suffered acutely from this proximity to depravity and vulgarity at
+first; but ere long she transformed the vicinity in which her cell was
+situated "from an inferno to an oasis of peace." When she walked in the
+corridor, where at first she was pointed at, abused and reviled, she was
+now surrounded by wretched beings who clung to her skirts and regarded
+her as a divinity. Her sweet voice soothed brawls, her words of courage
+inspired the most hopeless. Everybody loved her, everybody desired her
+acquittal.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime she was writing her famous "Memoirs," and the touching letters
+to her husband, her child, and to Buzot. After an imprisonment of more
+than six months, she was finally called before the judge and the
+prosecution, and accused of being the wife of Roland, the conspirator,
+the friend of his accomplices. Twenty-one Girondists had already been
+executed, and she could not hope to escape. She was condemned to death
+as guilty of traitorous relations with conspirators. She heard the
+sentence proudly, and replied, "You consider me worthy to share the fate
+of the great men whom you have assassinated. I shall try to carry to the
+scaffold the courage they have shown."</p>
+
+<p>Robespierre signed her death-warrant. He had been her friend, guest, and
+correspondent. She had helped him when he was unknown, defended him when
+he was in need of a defender. But he sent her to the scaffold; and on
+November 9, 1793, the tumbril came to convey her to the guillotine. It
+had taken many others on that same day; and now her only companion on
+that fatal ride was a trembling old man named La Marche. He wept
+bitterly, but Madame Roland cheered him with words of courage and
+strength.</p>
+
+<p>When they arrived at the Place de la Concorde, she begged the
+executioner to permit the "etiquette of the scaffold" to be waived, and
+to allow La Marche to die first, that the sight of her death might not
+accentuate his fear and misery. So to the last moment of her life she
+was true to her religion of thoughtfulness for others.</p>
+
+<p>Beautiful, self-possessed, and calm, she stood upon the scaffold in the
+pride of her womanhood, and spoke those last immortal words as she
+lifted her eyes to the statue of Liberty, "O Liberty, how many crimes
+are committed in thy name."</p>
+
+<p>Then the axe fell, and the assassins of the Revolution had added another
+victim to their list. Seven days after this event, M. Roland committed
+suicide by stabbing himself through the heart.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig005" name="sig005"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig005.jpg" width="300" height="47" alt="Author signature. Ella Wheeler Wilcox." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page241" name="page241"></a>(p. 241)</span> MARIE ANTOINETTE<br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Mrs. Octavius Freire Owen</span><br>
+
+(1755-1793)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img010" name="img010"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img010.jpg" width="250" height="300" alt="Marie Antoinette." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Maria Theresa, the Empress of Austria, was not highly educated; and she
+was incapable of directing the studies of her children, although by
+precept and example she laid the foundation of characters, all of which
+became more or less remarkable. Marie Antoinette, her youngest child,
+was perhaps the most neglected. She once innocently caused the dismissal
+of her governess, through a confession that all the letters and drawings
+shown to her mother, in proof of her improvement, had been previously
+traced with a pencil. At fifteen her knowledge of Italian, studied under
+Metastasio, was the only branch of her education which had been fairly
+attended to, if we except considerable conversance with the "Lives of
+the Saints" and other legendary lore, the favorite fictions of monastic
+compilers. Nature had, nevertheless, done much for the young
+archduchess; she possessed great facility for learning, and was not slow
+in taking advantage of opportunities for improvement when they were
+afforded. In person she was most attractive. "Beaming with freshness,"
+says Madame Campan, "she appeared to all eyes more than beautiful. Her
+walk partook at once of the noble character of the princesses of her
+house and of the graces of the French; her eyes were mild, her smile
+lovely. It was impossible to refrain from admiring her aërial
+deportment; her smile was sufficient to win the heart; and in this
+enchanting being, in whom the splendor of French gayety shone forth, an
+indescribable but august serenity&mdash;perhaps, also, the somewhat proud
+position of her head and shoulders&mdash;betrayed the daughter of the
+Cæsars." Such, according to her affectionate chronicler, appeared Marie
+Antoinette, when her nuptials were celebrated at Versailles with the
+Dauphin of France.</p>
+
+<p>Superstitious minds discovered fatal omens from the earliest years of
+the hapless dauphiness. She had begun ill by first drawing breath upon
+the very day of the earthquake of Lisbon; this made a great impression
+on the mother, and later <span class="pagenum"><a id="page242" name="page242"></a>(p. 242)</span> upon the child also. Another incident
+was not less discouraging: the empress had "protected a person named
+Gassner," who fancied himself inspired, and affected to predict events.
+"Tell me," she said to him one day, "whether my Antoinette will be
+happy?" At first Gassner turned pale and remained silent, but, urged by
+the empress, and dreading to distress her by his own fancies, he said,
+equivocally, "Madame, there are crosses for all shoulders." Goethe
+notices that a pavilion erected to receive Marie Antoinette and her
+suite in the neighborhood of Strasburg was lined with tapestry depicting
+the story of Jason, "the most fatal union" on record; and a few days
+later, when the young queen arrived from Versailles to witness the
+rejoicings of the people upon her marriage, she was compelled to fly,
+terrified, from a scene remarkable not for festivity and happiness, but
+for the variety and horror of its accidents. These circumstances threw a
+gloom over the prospective triumphs of the impressionable bride; but her
+nature and age were alike favorable to vivacity, and she shook off the
+morbid influence.</p>
+
+<p>Something of her mother's wise advice to her as to the course she should
+follow in her new position has been preserved in the following letter:</p>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>"<span class="smcap">My Dear Daughter</span>:</p>
+
+<p>"... Do not take any recommendations; listen to no one, if you
+     would be at peace. Have no curiosity,&mdash;this is a fault which I
+     fear greatly for you; avoid all familiarity with your inferiors.
+     Ask of Monsieur and Madame de Noailles, and even exact of them,
+     under all circumstances, advice as to what, as a foreigner and
+     being desirous of pleasing the nation, you should do, and that
+     they should tell you frankly if there be anything in your
+     bearing, discourse, or any point which you should correct. Reply
+     amiably to every one, and with grace and dignity; you can if you
+     will. You must learn to refuse.... After Strasburg you must
+     accept nothing without taking counsel of Monsieur and Madame de
+     Noailles; and you should refer to them every one who would speak
+     to you of his personal affairs, saying frankly that being a
+     stranger yourself, you cannot undertake to recommend any one to
+     the king. If you wish you may add, in order to make your reply
+     more emphatic, 'The empress, my mother, has expressly forbidden
+     me to undertake any recommendations.' Do not be ashamed to ask
+     advice of any one, and do nothing on your own responsibility....
+     In the king you will find a tender father who will also be your
+     friend if you deserve it. Put entire confidence in him; you will
+     run no risk. Love him, obey him, seek to divine his thoughts; you
+     cannot do enough on this moment when I am losing you....
+     Concerning the dauphin I shall say nothing; you know my delicacy
+     on this point. A wife should be submissive in everything to her
+     husband, and should have no thought but to please him and do his
+     will.... The only true happiness in this world lies in a happy
+     marriage; I know whereof I speak. Everything depends on the wife
+     if she be yielding, sweet, and amusing.... I counsel you, my dear
+     daughter, to reread this letter on the twenty-first of every
+     month. I beg you to be true to me on this point. My <span class="pagenum"><a id="page243" name="page243"></a>(p. 243)</span>
+     only fear for you is negligence in your prayers and studies; and
+     lukewarmness succeeds negligence. Fight against it, for it is
+     more dangerous than a more reprehensible, even wicked state; one
+     can conquer that more easily. Love your family; be affectionate
+     to them&mdash;to your aunts as well as to your brothers-in-law and
+     sisters-in-law. Suffer no evil-speaking; you must either silence
+     the persons, or escape it by withdrawing from them. If you value
+     your peace of mind, you must from the start avoid this pitfall,
+     which I greatly fear for you knowing your curiosity....</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="add10emr">"Your mother,</span><br>
+  "<span class="smcap">Maria-Theresa</span>."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The grand annoyance Marie Antoinette experienced upon her entrance into
+the French Court, was the necessity of observing a system of etiquette
+to which she had been unaccustomed, and soon pronounced, with girlish
+vehemence, insupportable. Barrière copies a ridiculous anecdote in
+illustration of this from the manuscript fragments of Madame Campan:
+"Madame de Noailles" (this was the first lady of honor to the
+dauphiness) "abounded in virtues; I cannot pretend to deny it. Her
+piety, charity, and irreproachable morals rendered her worthy of praise,
+but etiquette was to her a sort of atmosphere; at the slightest
+derangement of the consecrated order, one would have thought she would
+have been stifled, and that life would forsake her frame. One day I
+unintentionally threw this poor lady into a terrible agony. The queen
+was receiving I know not whom&mdash;some persons just presented, I believe;
+the lady of honor, the queen's tire-woman, and the ladies of the
+bed-chamber were behind the queen. I was near the throne with the two
+women on duty. All was right; at least, I thought so. Suddenly I
+perceived the eyes of Madame de Noailles fixed on mine. She made a sign
+with her head, and then raised her eyebrows to the top of her forehead,
+lowered them, raised them again, then began to make little signs with
+her hand. From all this pantomime, I could easily perceive that
+something was not as it should be; as I looked about on all sides to
+find out what it was, the agitation of the countess kept increasing. The
+queen, who perceived all this, looked at me with a smile. I found means
+to approach her Majesty, who said to me in a whisper: '<i>Let down your
+lappets, or the countess will expire.</i>' All this bustle arose from two
+unlucky pins, which fastened up my lappets, while the etiquette of
+costume said '<i>Lappets hanging down</i>.'"</p>
+
+<p>To the Countess de Noailles Marie Antoinette speedily gave the name of
+Madame l'Étiquette; this pleasantry the object of it could pardon, not
+so the French nation. The avowed dislike to ceremony manifested by the
+lively little dauphiness, her desire to substitute the simple manners of
+her native Vienna for the stately formality of Versailles, displeased
+more than her genuine condescension and affability attracted. Early also
+in her married life, to beguile the heavy tedium of their evenings, she
+instituted a variety of childish games which became talked of and
+condemned; she liked theatrical representations, and persuaded her two
+young brothers-in-law, with the princesses, to join her in performing
+plays, and though they were kept secret for a time, she suffered for her
+innocent contrivances <span class="pagenum"><a id="page244" name="page244"></a>(p. 244)</span> in public opinion. It must be remembered
+that Marie Antoinette had no sincere friends upon her arrival in France,
+except the Duc de Choiseul and his party, and his disgrace prevented her
+deriving much benefit from the man who had first negotiated her
+marriage. The house of Austria was looked upon with dislike and doubt;
+nor were these, even in the case of the young dauphin's aunt, Madame
+Adelaide, made a matter of concealment. Thus, at her entrance upon
+public life, Antoinette was met with cynicism and prejudice, and
+unfortunately her own conduct rather increased than quieted the
+insidious voice&mdash;the "<i>bruit sourd</i>"&mdash;of both.</p>
+
+<p>Louis XV. had manifested from the first great pleasure in the society of
+his grandson's bride. After dining in his apartment at the Tuileries,
+upon her arrival at Paris, she was obliged to acknowledge the shouts of
+the multitude, which filled the garden below, by presenting herself on
+the balcony. The Governor of Paris had told her politely at the time,
+that "these were so many lovers." Little did she think that at the very
+moment a strong party around her was planning her divorce, under the
+supposition that the dauphin's coldness to his bride proceeded from
+dislike. Louis was a timid, though rough, youth at the time, and for a
+considerable period treated the attractions which the courtiers so
+highly extolled, with churlish indifference. The French king, indeed,
+did his best to promote a better understanding, and when the reserve of
+the dauphin once thawed, the latter became tenderly attached to her, and
+greatly improved by her influence and society.</p>
+
+<p>An interesting trait of this youthful pair is told, as occurring at the
+moment when they might have been excused for entertaining other and more
+selfish thoughts. They were expecting the intelligence of the death of
+Louis XV. It had been agreed, as the disorder was one frightfully
+contagious, that the court should depart immediately upon learning it
+could be of no further assistance, and that a lighted taper, placed in
+the window of the dying monarch's chamber, should form a signal for the
+cavalcade to prepare for the journey. The taper was extinguished; a
+tumult of voices and advancing feet were heard in the outer apartment.
+"It was the crowd of courtiers deserting the dead sovereign's
+ante-chamber, to come and bow to the new power of Louis XVI." With a
+spontaneous impulse the dauphin and his bride threw themselves upon
+their knees, and shedding a torrent of tears, exclaimed, "O God! guide
+us, protect us; we are too young to govern." Thus the Countess de
+Noailles found them as she entered, the first to salute Marie Antoinette
+as Queen of France.</p>
+
+<a id="img011" name="img011"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img011.jpg" width="600" height="431" alt="" title="">
+<p>Marie Antoinette.</p></div>
+
+<p>For some time the young queen's liking for children was ungratified by
+the possession of any of her own, and this gave rise to an amusing
+attempt to adopt one belonging to others. One day, when she was driving
+near Luciennes, a little peasant boy fell under the horses' feet, and
+might have been killed. The queen took him to Versailles, appointed him
+a nurse, and installed him in the royal apartments, constantly seating
+him in her lap at breakfast and dinner. This child afterward grew up a
+most sanguinary revolutionist! It was nine years before Marie Antoinette
+had the blessing of any offspring; four children were <span class="pagenum"><a id="page245" name="page245"></a>(p. 245)</span> after
+that interval, born to her, two of whom died in their infancy, and two
+survived to share their parent's subsequent imprisonment. The sad
+history of her son's fate, a promising and attractive boy, is well
+known.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen the Austrian princess was no favorite with her husband's
+nation. After a time accusations as unjust as serious assailed her, and
+in the horrors of the succeeding revolution the popular feeling evinced
+itself in a hundred frightful ways. Louis XVI., a mild prince, averse to
+violence or bloodshed, was unfit to stem the tide of opposition; had he
+possessed the energy of his queen, the Reign of Terror had perhaps never
+existed. Throughout her misfortunes, in every scene of flight, of
+opprobrium, and desolation, her magnanimity and courage won, even from
+the ruffians around, occasional expressions of sympathy. A harrowing and
+melancholy history is hers, and one which has been often vividly
+narrated; its details, also, are sufficiently recent to be still fresh
+within the recollection of many. For these reasons, and further because
+it seems to us a repellent, if not a mischievous, act to amplify such
+records before advancing age shall have invested them to the mind with
+deeper significance, we gladly pass over the picture suggested by this
+dark historical page, and, resuming the narrative where Madame de Campan
+drops it, content ourselves with a description of the last scene in the
+terrible drama.</p>
+
+<p>When this devoted woman left her royal mistress in the miserable cell at
+the Convent of the Feuillans, she never again saw her. Imprisonment, and
+the intense grief she experienced, more for others than for herself,
+completely transformed the once beautiful queen; her hair was
+prematurely silvered, like that of Mary Stuart, her figure bowed, her
+voice low and tremulous. Then came the separation from the king. Once
+more only did her eyes again behold him, and after the parting between
+the dethroned monarch and his adoring family, he might indeed have been
+able to say, "The bitterness of death was passed." However weak at
+intervals, the unhappy Louis met his death heroically. The sufferings of
+his wife at the time when the guns boomed out the fearful catastrophe,
+may be supposed to have been as great as the human frame has power to
+endure. Shortly after, she was separated from her children and conveyed
+to the prison of the Conciergerie, a damp and loathsome place, whence
+she was summoned one morning in October to receive a sentence for which
+it is probable she ardently longed. Let us look at her through the bars
+of her prison upon her return thither after it was pronounced.</p>
+
+<p>It is four o'clock in the morning. The widowed Queen of France stands
+calm and resigned in her cell, listening with a melancholy smile to the
+tumult of the mob outside. A faint illumination announces the approach
+of day; it is the last she has to live! Seating herself at a table she
+writes, with hurried hand, a last letter of ardent tenderness to the
+sister of her husband, the pious Madame Elizabeth, and to her children;
+and now she passionately presses the insensible paper to her lips, as
+the sole remaining link between those dear ones and herself. She stops,
+sighs, and throws herself upon her miserable pallet. What! in such an
+hour as this can the queen sleep? Even so!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page246" name="page246"></a>(p. 246)</span> And now look up, daughter of the Cæsars! Thou art waked from
+dreams of hope and light, from the imaged embrace of thy beloved Louis,
+thy tender infants, by a kind voice, choked by tears. Arise! emancipated
+one, thy prison doors are open. Freedom, freedom is at hand!</p>
+
+<p>Immediately in front of the palace of the Tuileries&mdash;scene of the short
+months of her wedded happiness&mdash;there rises a dark, ominous mass. Around
+is a sea of human faces; above, the cold frown of a winter's sky. With a
+firm step the victim ascends the stairs of the scaffold, her white
+garments wave in the chill breeze, a black ribbon by which her cap is
+confined beats to and fro against her pale cheeks. You may see that she
+is unmindful of her executioners&mdash;she glances, nay, almost smiles, at
+the sharp edge of the guillotine, and then turning her eyes toward the
+Temple, utters, in a few agitated words, her last earthly farewell to
+Louis and her children. There is a hush&mdash;a stillness of the grave&mdash;for
+the very headsman trembles as the horrible blade falls&mdash;anon, a moment's
+delay. And now, look! No, rather veil your eyes from the dreadful sight;
+close your ears to that fiendish shout&mdash;<i>Vive la République!</i> It is
+over! the sacrifice is accomplished! the weary spirit is at rest!</p>
+
+<p>Let us dwell upon this last mournful pageant only sufficiently far as to
+imitate the virtues, and emulate the firmness and resignation with which
+she met her doom. Nothing is permitted without a meaning, all is for
+either warning or example; and while breathing a prayer that Heaven may
+avert a recurrence of such outrages, let us remember that moral
+indecision, the undue love of pleasure, and an aimless, profitless mode
+of life, as surely, and not less fatally, may raise the surging tide of
+events no human skill can quell, as the most selfish abandonment to
+uncontrolled desires.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>ANDREAS HOFER<br>
+
+(1767-1810)</h3>
+
+
+<p>Andreas Hofer, a native of the village of St. Leonard, in the valley of
+Passeyr, was born on November 22, 1767. During the greater part of his
+life he resided peaceably in his own neighborhood, where he kept an inn,
+and increased his profits by dealing in wine, corn, and cattle. About
+his neck he wore at all times a small crucifix and a medal of St.
+George. He never held any rank in the Austrian army; but he had formed a
+secret connection with the Archduke John, when that prince had passed a
+few weeks in the Tyrol making scientific researches. In November, 1805,
+Hofer was appointed deputy from his native valley at the conference of
+Brunnecken, and again at a second conference, held at Vienna, in
+January, 1809.</p>
+
+<a id="img012" name="img012"></a>
+<div class="floatright">
+<img src="images/img012.jpg" width="250" height="304" alt="Andreas Hofer." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page247" name="page247"></a>(p. 247)</span> The Tyrol had for many years been an appendage of the Austrian
+states, and the inhabitants had become devoted to that government; so
+that when, by the treaty of Presburg, the province was transferred to
+the rule of the King of Bavaria, then the ally of Napoleon I., the
+peasants were greatly irritated, and their discontent was further
+provoked by the large and frequent exactions which the continual wars
+obliged the new government to levy on the Tyrolese. The consequence was,
+that when their own neighborhood became the theatre of military
+operations between Austria and France, in the spring of 1809, a general
+insurrection broke out in the Tyrol. His resolution of character,
+natural eloquence, and private influence as a wealthy citizen, joined to
+a figure of great stature and strength, pointed out Andreas Hofer to his
+countrymen as the leader of this revolt; and with him were united
+Spechbacher, Joseph Haspinger, and Martin Teimer, whose names have all
+become historical. A perfect understanding was maintained between the
+insurgents and their late masters, and the signal of the insurrection
+was given by the Archduke John in a proclamation from his head-quarters
+at Klagenfurth. An Austrian army of 10,000 men, commanded by the Marquis
+Castellar, was directed to enter the Tyrol and support the insurrection,
+which broke out in every quarter on the night of April 8, 1809. The
+Austrian general himself crossed the frontier at daybreak on the 9th. On
+their side the Bavarians marched an army of 25,000 men into the province
+to quell the revolt. Hofer and his band of armed peasantry fell upon the
+Bavarians while entangled in the narrow glens, and on April 10th
+defeated Besson and Lemoine at the Sterzinger Moos. The next day a troop
+of peasants under Teimer took possession of Innsbrück. On the 12th
+Besson surrendered with his division of 3,000 men. In a single week all
+the fortresses were recovered, nearly 10,000 troops of the enemy were
+destroyed, and the whole province was redeemed.</p>
+
+<p>Incensed by this interruption of his plans, Napoleon despatched three
+armies almost simultaneously to assail the province at three different
+points. One of these forces was under the command of Marshal Lefebvre,
+who, on May 12th, defeated the united army of the Austrian soldiers,
+under Castellar, and the Tyrolese peasantry, under Haspinger and
+Spechbacher, at Feuer Singer. The troops made a bad use of their
+victory, slaughtering the inhabitants of the villages on their route,
+without distinction of age or sex. The Bavarian and French officers
+encouraged and took part in the excesses of the soldiers; while the
+insurgents, far from retaliating, refrained from every species of
+license, and nursed their wounded prisoners with the same care as their
+own friends. Hofer himself was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page248" name="page248"></a>(p. 248)</span> not always present in action,
+his talent consisting rather in stimulating his countrymen than in
+actual fighting; but at the battle of Innsbrück (May 28, 1809), he led
+the Tyrolese, exhibited both skill and daring, and defeated the
+Bavarians with a loss of 4,000 men. The whole of the Tyrol was delivered
+a second time. But after the battle of Wagram (July 6th), and the
+armistice of Znaim which immediately followed, the Austrian army was
+obliged to evacuate the Tyrol, leaving the helpless insurgents to the
+mercy of an exasperated enemy. Marshal Lefebvre now invaded the province
+a second time, and entered it by the road from Salzburg, with an army of
+21,000 troops, while Beaumont, having crossed the ridge of Schnartz with
+a force 10,000 strong, threatened Innsbrück from the north. On July 30th
+Innsbrück submitted. A series of desperate contests followed along the
+line of the Brenner, mostly with doubtful success, but in one the
+marshal was defeated, when twenty-five pieces of artillery and a
+quantity of ammunition fell into the hands of the Tyrolese. Again, on
+August 12th, Marshal Lefebvre, with an army of 25,000 Bavarian and
+French soldiers, 2,000 of whom were cavalry, was totally beaten by the
+Tyrolese army, consisting of 18,000 armed peasants. The battle, which
+was fought near Innsbrück, is said to have lasted from six in the
+morning until midnight. For a third time the Tyrol was free.</p>
+
+<p>After this victory, entirely achieved by the peasantry themselves, Hofer
+became the absolute ruler of the country; coins were struck with his
+effigy, and proclamations issued in his name. His power, however,
+scarcely lasted two months, and became the cause of his ruin ultimately.
+Three veteran armies, comprising a force of nearly 50,000 French and
+Bavarian troops, were despatched in October to subdue the exhausted
+province; and, unable to make head against them, Hofer was obliged to
+take refuge in the mountains. Soon after, a price having been set on his
+head, a pretended friend (a priest named Donay) was induced to betray
+him, January 20, 1810. After his arrest he was conveyed to Mantua, and
+the intelligence having been communicated by telegraph to the French
+emperor, an order was instantly returned that he must be tried. This
+order was a sentence; and after a court-martial, at which, however, the
+majority were averse to a sentence of death, Hofer was condemned to be
+shot. His execution took place on February 20, 1810, his whole military
+career having occupied less than forty weeks. The Emperor Francis
+conferred a handsome pension upon the widow and family of Hofer, and
+created Hofer's son a noble. The Austrian government also raised a
+marble statue of heroic size in the cathedral of Innsbrück, where the
+body of the patriot was interred; while his own countrymen have
+commemorated his efforts by raising a small pyramid to mark the spot
+where he was taken.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="img013" name="img013"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img013.jpg" width="600" height="418" alt="" title="">
+<p>Andreas Hofer led to Execution.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page249" name="page249"></a>(p. 249)</span> QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA<br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Mrs. Francis G. Faithfull</span><br>
+
+(1776-1810)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img014" name="img014"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img014.jpg" width="250" height="337" alt="Queen Louise of Prussia." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>There is at Paretz, near Potsdam, a flower-bordered walk leading from a
+grotto overlooking the Havel to an iron gate, above which is inscribed
+"May 20, 1810" and the letter "L." Within the grotto an iron table bears
+in golden characters, "Remember the Absent."</p>
+
+<p>These words were engraved by order of Friedrich Wilhelm III. of Prussia;
+and the "absent" he would have remembered&mdash;"the star of his life, who
+had lighted him so truly on his darkened way"&mdash;was the wife who died of
+a broken heart before reaching middle age.</p>
+
+<p>Louise Augusta Wilhelmina, third daughter of Duke Charles of
+Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was born on March 10, 1776, in the city of
+Hanover. Her mother died when she was six years old, and henceforth she
+and her sister Frederica lived with their grandmother, the Landgravine
+of Darmstadt, sometimes at the Burgfreiheit Palace, sometimes at a
+château in the Herrengarten, surrounded by formal gardens and
+orangeries. The girls were brought up simply, making their own clothes,
+and going much among the poor. Now and then they made expeditions to
+Strasburg or the Vosges Mountains; and, when the Emperor Leopold was
+crowned at Frankfort, the Frau von Goethe housed them hospitably, and
+was highly entertained by the glee with which they worked a quaint
+sculptured pump in her courtyard. Two years later the advance of French
+troops compelled them to seek refuge with their eldest sister, the
+reigning Duchess of Hildburghausen; and on their homeward way they
+visited the Prussian head-quarters, that the Landgravine might present
+them to the king. His sons were with him, and long afterward the Crown
+Prince told a friend, "I felt when I saw her, 'tis she or none on
+earth."</p>
+
+<p>The wooing was short. On April 24, 1793, he exchanged betrothal rings
+with Louise, and then rejoined his regiment. Soon after, the Princesses
+of Mecklenburg went over to the camp, Louise appearing "a heavenly
+vision" in the eyes of Goethe, who saw her there.</p>
+
+<p>In the December of that same year Berlin, gay with flags and ablaze with
+colored lamps, welcomed Duke Charles and his daughters; and on Christmas
+Eve the diamond crown of the Hohenzollerns was placed on her fair head,
+and in her <span class="pagenum"><a id="page250" name="page250"></a>(p. 250)</span> glistening silver robe she took part in the solemn
+torch procession round the White Saloon.</p>
+
+<p>Then her young husband took her home to their palace in the "Unter den
+Linden." They were very happy. In the sunshine of his wife's presence
+the prince's spirit, crushed in childhood by a harsh tutor, soon
+revived, while Louise, though the darling of the court, was always most
+content when alone with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God! you are my wife again," he exclaimed, one day, when she had
+laid aside her jewels.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I not always your wife?" she asked, laughingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! no; too often you can be only the crown princess."</p>
+
+<p>Her father-in-law never wearied of showering kindnesses on his "Princess
+of Princesses." On her eighteenth birthday he asked if she desired
+anything he could give. "A handful of gold for the Berlin poor," was the
+prompt petition.</p>
+
+<p>"And how large a handful would the birthday child like?"</p>
+
+<p>"As large as the heart of the kindest of kings."</p>
+
+<p>The Castle of Charlottenberg, one of his many gifts to the young pair,
+proving too splendid for their simple tastes, he bought for them the
+Manor of Paretz, about two miles from Potsdam. There Louise busied
+herself with household affairs, while her husband gardened, strolled
+over his fields, or inspected his farm stock. They played and sang
+together, or read Shakespeare and Goethe, while to complete this
+home-life came two baby boys: Fritz, born in October, 1795, and
+Friedrich Wilhelm, in March, 1797. Someone once asked Louise if this
+country existence was not rather dull. "Oh! no," she exclaimed; "I am
+quite happy as the worthy lady of Paretz."</p>
+
+<p>But in the late autumn of 1797 the king died, and the quiet freedom of
+Paretz had to be exchanged for the restraints of court life. Little as
+either of the two desired regal pomp, they played their new parts well.
+Friedrich Wilhelm, stately in bearing, and acknowledged as the
+handsomest man in his realm, looked every inch a king; and if his
+laconic speech and caustic criticisms sometimes gave offence, the
+winning gentleness of his beautiful wife more than made amends. Nobles
+and citizens, statesmen, soldiers, and savants were alike made welcome;
+and Louise knew instinctively how to make each show at his best. With
+eager interest she discussed Pestalozzi's ideas with his disciples; and
+when Gotlöeb Hiller, the poet-son of a miner, was presented to her, she
+led him aside, and by the friendly ease with which she talked of things
+familiar to him, speedily banished his shyness. Indeed, ready as she was
+to recognize high gifts and to learn from all able to teach, yet it was
+to the obscure and suffering that her tones were most soft and gracious.
+Even in trifles her thoughtfulness was unfailing. When a count and a
+shoemaker were announced at the same moment, she gave audience first to
+the shoemaker. "For time is more valuable to him."</p>
+
+<a id="img015" name="img015"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img015.jpg" width="500" height="407" alt="" title="">
+<p>Queen Louise visiting the Poor.</p></div>
+
+<p>At Dantzic she constantly wore an amber necklace, because it had been
+the gift of the townsfolk. The voice which in childhood had pleaded for
+the panting footman running beside her grandmother's coach, might still
+be heard interceding, for when the royal carriage was overturned near
+Warsaw, and the Oberk <span class="pagenum"><a id="page251" name="page251"></a>(p. 251)</span> of Messterin rated the servants,
+Louise interposed: "We are not hurt, and our people have assuredly been
+more alarmed than we."</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the midday meal was spread beneath a forest tree, and from far
+and near the peasants flocked to get "even a glimpse of her lovely
+face." They followed in crowds while she and the king climbed the
+Schneekoppe on foot, but loyal shouts died into awed silence when, at
+the summit, Friedrich Wilhelm bared his head, and the two standing side
+by side gazed at the glorious view. "That was one of the most blessed
+moments of my life," Louise said afterward; "we seemed lifted above this
+earth and nearer our God."</p>
+
+<p>They entered the mines at Woldenberg by a swift-flowing stream, and
+twenty years afterward the steersman of their boat was fond of telling
+how, in the dark cavern&mdash;"The Foxes' Hole"&mdash;he saw her well by the
+torchlight. "In all my life I never saw such a face. She looked grand,
+as a queen should look, but gentle as a child. She gave me with her own
+hands two Holland ducats. My wife wears them when she goes to church,
+for what she touched is holy."</p>
+
+<p>Louise had never meddled in foreign politics. She had been, she designed
+to be, only the "Landesmutter," and even when the murder of the Duc
+d'Enghien, seized on Prussian soil, aroused in Berlin a storm of
+indignation, in which she fully shared, she yet sympathized in the
+mental distress which found vent in her husband's often-repeated words,
+"I cannot decide for war."</p>
+
+<p>At last he did decide. In October, 1805, Napoleon ordered Bernadotte to
+march his army corps through Anspach. This contemptuous comment on
+Prussia's ten-years' forbearance was too much for the king's pride.
+Armies were raised in Franconia, Saxony, Westphalia, and while the
+excitement was at fever point the czar came to Berlin. All his rare
+charm of manner was brought to bear, and at midnight, in the presence of
+Louise, the two monarchs, standing with clasped hands beside the tomb of
+the great Friedrich, solemnly pledged themselves to a close alliance.</p>
+
+<p>Alexander departed to lead his Russians to Moravia, and Friedrich
+Wilhelm despatched a protest to the French camp; but the envoy,
+Haugwitz, arriving on the eve of Austerlitz, waited the issue of the
+battle, and then, withholding his packet, proposed to the victor a fresh
+treaty with Prussia. There was wrath in Berlin when his doings became
+known. The king at first disowned the disgraceful compact, but
+Austerlitz had just taught him what Napoleon's enemies might expect.
+French troops were already massing on his frontier, and in an evil hour
+he broke faith with the czar! To Louise, who neither feared foe nor
+deserted friend, that was a bitter time&mdash;doubly sad, indeed, since most
+of the long winter was spent by the dying bed of her youngest child.
+When she lost him her own strength broke down, and the doctors ordered
+her away to drink the Pyrmont waters. In the late summer she was able to
+rejoin her husband, and he had startling news to tell, for war with
+France was close at hand.</p>
+
+<p>Since Haugwitz's fatal agreement Napoleon had heaped injuries on
+Prussia. Now, at least, king and people were of one mind. The young
+Prussian officers sharpened their swords on the French ambassador's
+window-sills, patriotic songs <span class="pagenum"><a id="page252" name="page252"></a>(p. 252)</span> were hailed with thunders of
+applause in street and theatre, and when the queen, clad in the uniform
+of her own Hussars, rode at their head through the city, she was greeted
+with passionate loyalty.</p>
+
+<p>Unhappily, Friedrich Wilhelm, hitherto too tardy, was now too
+precipitate. He had been passive while France crushed Austria, and
+Austria, suspicious and disabled, neither could nor would assist him.
+Russia, with better reason for distrust, responded generously to his
+appeal, but he did not wait for her promised aid. For all his haste,
+Napoleon, with 180,000 men, was nearing the Thuringian Forest before the
+Prussian troops left Berlin. They were very confident, those Prussian
+troops, and the shouting multitudes who watched the well-trained
+artillery and cavalry defiling by, hardly dreamed of disaster; yet it
+came almost at once. The Saxon corps, led by the king's cousin, Prince
+Louis, pushing on too fast, was surprised and surrounded, and the
+gallant young commander, the queen's dear friend, the idol of the army,
+fell while rallying his men.</p>
+
+<p>Louise, who had hurriedly joined the king from Weimar, could hardly be
+persuaded to leave him, but on the evening of October 13th he confided
+her to a cavalry escort, promising speedy tidings of the coming battle.
+As she threaded the lonely passes of the Hartz Mountains she heard the
+distant cannonading, and a broken sentence now and again fell from her
+lips: "We know that all things work together for good." Late in the
+misty October twilight she drove into Brunswick. At Brandenburg a
+courier brought the news her trembling heart awaited. All was lost!
+Twenty thousand Prussians lay on the fields of Auerstadt and Jena, and
+the French were already in Weimar. The king was alive, but two horses
+had been killed under him. Grief-stricken, travel-worn as she was,
+Louise must not halt. Before she reached Berlin her children had been
+sent to Schwedt-on-Oder. She followed thither, almost terrifying them by
+her changed, despairing looks. As soon as she could check her weeping,
+she told her boys all she knew about Prince Louis's death. "Do not only
+grieve for him. Be ready for Prussia's sake to meet death as he met it,"
+and then, in burning, never-forgotten words, she bade them one day free
+their country and break the power of France.</p>
+
+<p>There seemed only a choice between utter destruction and utter
+submission, and yet when Napoleon demanded the cession of almost the
+whole kingdom, Friedrich Wilhelm and his wife agreed that "only
+determined resistance can save us." She was slowly rallying at
+Königsberg from a fever caught in the crowded city, when the cry was
+raised of the coming French. Propped by pillows, swathed in shawls, she
+drove through blinding sleet to Memel, the one fortress still left to
+the king. At her first halting-place the wind whistled in through a
+broken window, and the melting snow dripped from the roof on to her bed.
+Her companions trembled for her, but she, calm and trustful, hailed as a
+good omen the sunshine which welcomed them within the walls of Memel.</p>
+
+<p>A week later Benningsen and his Russians, who had been wading knee-deep
+through Polish forests and fording swollen streams, always with 90,000
+Frenchmen in hot pursuit, turned to bay amid the frozen lakes and
+drifted snows of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page253" name="page253"></a>(p. 253)</span> Eylau. Next day those snows for miles around
+were red with blood. It was hard to tell with whom the costly victory
+lay, but Napoleon despatched Bertrand to the Russian outposts to propose
+an armistice, and Benningsen sent him on to Memel, reminding the
+Prussian king that it could not be their interest to grant what it was
+Napoleon's interest to ask. The terms were, indeed, far easier than
+those offered after June; but Friedrich Wilhelm, true to the ally who
+had held the field almost single-handed through that terrible winter,
+would make no separate agreement, nor did Louise receive more favorably
+a message to herself, conveying Napoleon's wish to pay his court to her
+in her own capital.</p>
+
+<p>Though the piercing Baltic winds tried her strength greatly, she
+employed herself whenever able in reading and visiting the over-full
+hospitals. To a dear friend she said, "I can never be perfectly
+miserable while faith in God is open to me." "Only by patient
+perseverance," so she wrote to her father, "can we succeed. Sooner or
+later I know we shall do so."</p>
+
+<p>It was not to be yet. On June 14, 1807, Napoleon annihilated the
+Russians at Friedland, and four days later Dantzic fell. Her tone grew
+sadder. "We are not yet bereft of peace. My great sorrow is being unable
+to hope."</p>
+
+<p>As the czar could resist no longer and Napoleon desired peace, they met
+at Tilsit, and there, on a covered raft moored midway in the Niemen,
+arranged the outlines of a treaty. The next day Friedrich Wilhelm,
+yielding to stern necessity, accepted terms "to the last degree hard and
+overwhelming." The czar, believing that Louise might move even Napoleon
+to clemency, her husband begged her to join him at Tilsit. On reading
+this summons she burst into tears, declaring this the hardest task ever
+given her to do. "With my broken wing how can I succeed?" she
+pathetically asked.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon paid his respects soon after her arrival, and they met at the
+stairhead. Louise, for Prussia's sake, forced herself to utter courteous
+regrets that he should have to mount so steep a staircase. He answered
+blandly that no difficulties were feared when striving for a reward
+beyond. Then, touching her gauze robe, asked, "Is it crêpe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we speak of such trifles at such a time?" was her only reply.</p>
+
+<p>He was silent; then demanded, "How could you make war on me?"</p>
+
+<p>She told him that they had overrated their strength.</p>
+
+<p>"And relying on the great Friedrich's fame you deceived yourselves."</p>
+
+<p>Louise's clear eyes met his steadily. "Sire, resting on the great
+Friedrich's fame, we might naturally deceive ourselves, if, indeed, we
+wholly did so."</p>
+
+<p>Then she told him that she had come to entreat him to be generous to
+Prussia. He answered respectfully, but made no promise. Again, with
+exceeding earnestness, she implored at least for Magdeburg, just then
+Friedrich Wilhelm entered, and Napoleon abruptly took leave.</p>
+
+<p>"Sire," said Talleyrand warningly to him, when they were alone, "shall
+posterity say that you threw away your great conquest for the sake of a
+lovely woman?"</p>
+
+<p>Louise meanwhile dwelt again and again on Napoleon's words, "You ask a
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page254" name="page254"></a>(p. 254)</span> great deal, but I will think about it." Yet her heart was
+heavy, and when arrayed for the evening banquet in the splendid attire
+so long unworn, she likened herself sadly to the old German victims
+decked for sacrifice. Napoleon said of her afterward, "I knew I should
+see a beautiful and dignified queen; I found the most interesting woman
+and admirable queen I had ever known."</p>
+
+<p>The treaty of Tilsit restored to Friedrich Wilhelm a fragment of his
+kingdom, but even this was to be held by the French till after the
+payment of a huge indemnity. Napoleon's threat that he would make the
+Prussian nobles beg their bread had hardly been a vain one, for the
+unhappy Prussians had to feed, lodge, and clothe every French soldier
+quartered in their land. Dark as was the outlook, Louise was upheld by
+loving pride in her husband. "After Eylau he might have deserted a
+faithful ally. This he would not do. I believe his conduct will yet
+bring good fortune to Prussia."</p>
+
+<p>To help forward that good fortune they sold most of the crown lands and
+the queen's jewels, and had the gold plate melted down. Amid their heavy
+anxieties and pains they were not wholly unhappy, these two, who loved
+each other so entirely. "My Louise," the king said to her one day, "you
+have grown yet dearer to me in this time of trouble, for I more fully
+know the treasure I possess."</p>
+
+<p>She, too, could write of him, "The king is kinder to me than ever, a
+great joy and reward after a union of fourteen years." Still those about
+her told of sleepless nights when prayer was her only relief. Her eyes
+had lost their brightness, her cheeks were pale, her step languid. By
+the Christmas of 1808 the last French soldier had quitted Prussian soil;
+but it was not deemed safe for the royal family to return at once to
+Berlin, and they spent the summer at Hufen, near Königsberg. Parents and
+children were constantly together, and the mother taught herself to
+believe that the sharp trials of those years would tell for good on her
+boys and girls. "If they had been reared in luxury and prosperity they
+might think that so it must always be."</p>
+
+<p>It was not till the end of 1809 that the exiles turned their faces
+homeward. They travelled slowly, for the queen was still feeble.
+Everywhere a glad welcome greeted them; and on December 23d, the day on
+which, sixteen years before, she had entered the capital a girl-bride,
+Louise drove through its familiar streets in a carriage presented to her
+by the rejoicing citizens. Her father was waiting at the palace gate. He
+helped her to alight and led her in. Three years had gone by since she
+last crossed the threshold of her home, and what years they had been!
+Nor was the return all joy, for she knew and dreaded the changes she
+would find there. Napoleon and his generals had not departed empty
+handed. They had stripped the rooms of paintings and statues, of
+manuscripts and antiquities.</p>
+
+<p>As the doors closed a great shout arose from the vast crowd before the
+palace. Presently she appeared in the balcony, and all saw the traces of
+long anguish in the lovely face, now bright with grateful smiles.</p>
+
+<p>After a solemn service in the Dom, the king and queen drove through the
+illuminated city to the opera-house. "The queen sat beside her
+husband"&mdash;so <span class="pagenum"><a id="page255" name="page255"></a>(p. 255)</span> wrote Fouqué afterward&mdash;"and as she talked she
+often raised her eyes to him with a very touching expression.... Our
+beloved queen has thanked us with tears. Bonaparte has dimmed those
+heavenly eyes ... and we must do all we can to make them sparkle again."</p>
+
+<p>The bare walls, the empty cabinets of the palace, accorded with the
+almost ascetic habits now maintained there. Self-denial was made easy by
+one belief, that Prussia would arise from her great suffering stronger
+than before. The king and queen were not left to work alone toward that
+high end. Able generals replaced those who, through treachery or
+faint-heartedness, had surrendered the fortresses. Stein, now chief
+minister, curtailed the rights of the nobles, and gave the serfs an
+interest in guarding the soil they tilled; while Scharnhorst, by an
+ingenious evasion of Napoleon's edict limiting the Prussian army,
+contrived to have 200,000 men rapidly drilled and trained. The
+universities founded at Berlin and Breslau became the head-quarters of
+secret societies for the deliverance of the Fatherland. Princes and
+professors, merchants ruined by the Berlin decrees, and peasants ground
+down by French exactions, joined the Jugendbund, and implicitly obeyed
+the orders of its unseen heads. Through town and country spread that
+vast brotherhood, fired by the songs of Tieck and Arnim to live or die
+for Prussia.</p>
+
+<p>And Louise watched thankfully the dawning promise of better days,
+"though, alas! we may die before they come."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps that sad presentiment haunted her husband too. If she jested
+with her children he would say wistfully, "The queen is quite herself
+to-day. What a blessing it will be if her mind recovers its joyous
+tone!"</p>
+
+<p>That spring Louise was attacked by spasms of the heart. They did not
+last long, and when the court moved to Potsdam she seemed to regain
+strength, and showed much interest in discussing with Bishop Eylert how
+best to train her boys so that they might serve their country. Though
+very weak, she accompanied her family to Hohengieritz, the king perforce
+returning to Berlin. The loving eyes that watched her saw signs of
+amendment, but early on Monday, July 16th, the spasms recurred. For
+hours no remedies availed. She could only gasp for "Air! air!" and when
+the sharp pain had passed lay exhausted, now murmuring a few words of
+some hymn learnt as a child, faintly thanking God for each solace sent
+her, or entreating her grandmother to rest. No complaint passed her
+lips; she was only "very, very weary."</p>
+
+<p>They told her that couriers had been despatched for the king, and she
+asked anxiously, "Will he soon come?" Before dawn he came, bringing the
+two elder boys. For those who tried to cheer him he had only one
+mournful reply: "If she were not mine she might recover." A gleam of joy
+lighted her pale face when he came to her bedside, but perceiving his
+emotion she asked, "Am I then so very ill?" Unable to reply, he
+hurriedly left the room, and she said to those standing by, "His embrace
+was so wild, so fervent, that it seemed as though he would take leave of
+me. Tell him not to do that, or I shall die at once."</p>
+
+<p>He returned bringing in the children.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page256" name="page256"></a>(p. 256)</span> "My Fritz! my Wilhelm!" She had only time for one long gaze,
+and then the agonizing pain came again. One of the doctors tried to
+raise her, but she sank back. "Only death can help me;" and as all
+watched in breathless silence, she leaned her head against the shoulder
+of a faithful attendant, murmured, "Lord Jesus, shorten it!" and with
+one deep-drawn breath passed away.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>JAMES WATT<br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">John Times, F.S.A.</span><br>
+
+(1736-1819)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img016" name="img016"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img016.jpg" width="250" height="264" alt="James Watt." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>James Watt was born at Greenock, January 19, 1736. He was the fourth
+child in a family which, for a hundred years, had more or less professed
+mathematics and navigation. His constitution was delicate, and his
+mental powers were precocious. He was distinguished from an early age by
+his candor and truthfulness; and his father, to ascertain the cause of
+any of his boyish quarrels, used to say, "Let James speak; from him I
+always hear the truth." James also showed his constructive tastes
+equally early, experimenting on his playthings with a set of small
+carpenter's tools, which his father had given him. At six he was still
+at home. "Mr. Watt," said a friend to the father, "you ought to send
+that boy to school, and not let him trifle away his time at home." "Look
+what he is doing before you condemn him," was the reply. The visitor
+then observed the child had drawn mathematical lines and figures on the
+hearth, and was engaged in a process of calculation. On putting
+questions to him, he was astonished at his quickness and simplicity.
+"Forgive me," said he, "this child's education has not been neglected;
+this is no common child."</p>
+
+<a id="img017" name="img017"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img017.jpg" width="500" height="387" alt="" title="">
+<p>Watt discovering the Condensation of Steam.</p></div>
+
+<p>Watt's cousin, Mrs. Marian Campbell, describes his inventive capacity as
+a story-teller, and details an incident of his occupying himself with
+the steam of a tea-kettle, and by means of a cup and a spoon making an
+early experiment in the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page257" name="page257"></a>(p. 257)</span> condensation of steam. To this
+incident she probably attached more importance than was its due, from
+reverting to it when illustrated by her after-recollections. Out of this
+story, reliable or not in the sense ascribed to it, M. Arago obtained an
+oratorical point for an <i>éloge</i>, which he delivered to the French
+Institute. Watt may or may not have been occupied as a boy with the
+study of the condensation of steam while he was playing with the kettle.
+The story suggests a possibility, nothing more; though it has been made
+the foundation of a grave announcement, the subject of a pretty picture,
+and will ever remain a basis for suggestive speculation.</p>
+
+<p>Watt was sent to a commercial school, where he was provided with a fair
+outfit of Latin and with some elements of Greek; but mathematics he
+studied with greater zest, and with proportionate success. By the time
+he was fifteen, he had read twice, with grave attention, Gravesande's
+"Elements of Natural Philosophy;" and "while under his father's roof he
+went on with various chemical experiments, repeating them again and
+again, until satisfied of their accuracy from his own observations." He
+even made himself a small electrical machine, about 1750-53; no mean
+performance at that date, since, according to Priestley's "History of
+Electricity," the Leyden phial itself was not invented until the years
+1745-46.</p>
+
+<p>His pastime lay chiefly in his father's marine store, among the sails
+and ropes, the blocks and tackle: or by the old gray gateway of the
+Mansion House on the hill above Greenock, where he would loiter away
+hours by day, and at night lie down on his back and watch the stars
+through the trees.</p>
+
+<p>At this early age Watt suffered from continual and violent headaches,
+which often affected his nervous system for many days, even weeks; and
+he was similarly afflicted throughout his long life. He seldom rose
+early, but accomplished more in a few hours' study than ordinary minds
+do in many days. He was never in a hurry, and always had leisure to give
+to his friends, to poetry, romance, and the publications of the day; he
+read indiscriminately almost every new book he could procure. He
+assisted his father in his business, and soon learned to construct with
+his own hands several of the articles required in the way of his
+parent's trade; and by means of a small forge, set up for his own use,
+he repaired and made various kinds of instruments, and converted, by the
+way, a large silver coin into a punch-ladle, as a trophy of his early
+skill as a metal-smith. From this aptitude for ingenious handiwork, and
+in accordance with his own deliberate choice, it was decided that he
+should proceed to qualify himself for following the trade of a
+mathematical instrument maker. He accordingly went to Glasgow, in June,
+1754, and from there, after a year's stay, he proceeded for better
+instruction to London.</p>
+
+<p>On Watt's arrival in the metropolis, he sought a situation, but in vain,
+and he was beginning to despond, when he obtained work with one John
+Morgan, an instrument-maker, in Finch Lane, Cornhill. Here he gradually
+became proficient in making quadrants, parallel rulers, compasses,
+theodolites, etc., until, at the end of a year's practice, he could make
+"a brass sector with a French joint, which is <span class="pagenum"><a id="page258" name="page258"></a>(p. 258)</span> reckoned as nice
+a piece of framing work as is in the trade." During this interval he
+contrived to live upon eight shillings a week, exclusive of his lodging.
+His fear of the press-gang and his bodily ailments, however, led to his
+quitting London in August, 1756, and returning to Scotland, after
+investing twenty guineas in additional tools.</p>
+
+<p>At Glasgow, through the intervention of Dr. Dick, he was first employed
+in cleaning and repairing some of the instruments belonging to the
+college; and, after some difficulty, he received permission to open a
+shop within the precincts as "mathematical instrument maker to the
+University." Here Watt prospered, pursuing alike his course of manual
+labor and of mental study, and especially extending his acquaintance
+with physics; endeavoring, as he said, "to find out the weak side of
+nature, and to vanquish her." About this time he contrived an ingenious
+machine for drawing in perspective; and from fifty to eighty of these
+instruments, manufactured by him, were sent to different parts of the
+world. He had now procured the friendship of Dr. Black and another
+University worthy, John Robison, who, in stating the circumstances of
+his first introduction to Watt, says: "I saw a workman, and expected no
+more; but was surprised to find a philosopher as young as myself, and
+always ready to instruct me."</p>
+
+<p>It was some time in 1764 that the professor of natural philosophy in the
+University desired Watt to repair a pretty model of Newcomen's
+steam-engine. Like everything which came into Watt's hands, it soon
+became an object of most serious study.</p>
+
+<p>The interesting little model, as altered by the hand of Watt, was long
+placed beside the noble statue of the engineer in the Hunterian Museum
+at Glasgow. Watt himself, when he had got the bearings of his invention,
+could think of nothing else but his machine, and addressed himself to
+Dr. Roebuck, of the Carron Iron-works, with the view of its practical
+introduction to the world. A partnership ensued, but the connection did
+not prove satisfactory. Watt went on with his experiments, and in
+September, 1766, wrote to a friend: "I think I have laid up a stock of
+experience that will <i>soon</i> pay me for the trouble it has cost me." Yet
+it was between eight and nine years before that invaluable experience
+was made available, so as either to benefit the public or repay the
+inventor; and a much longer term elapsed before it was possible for that
+repayment to be reckoned in the form of substantial profit.</p>
+
+<p>Watt now began to practise as a land-surveyor and civil engineer. His
+first engineering work was a survey for a canal to unite the Forth and
+Clyde, in furtherance of which he had to appear before the House of
+Commons. His consequent journey to London was still more important, for
+then it was that he saw for the first time the great manufactory which
+Boulton had established at Soho, and of which he was afterward himself
+to be the guiding intelligence. In the meantime, among his other
+performances, he invented a micrometer for measuring distances; and,
+what is still more remarkable, he entertained the idea of moving
+canal-boats by the steam-engine through the instrumentality of a <i>spiral
+oar</i>, which as nearly as possible coincides with the screw-propeller of
+our day.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page259" name="page259"></a>(p. 259)</span> Watt's negotiations for partnership with Boulton were long and
+tedious. Dr. Roebuck's creditors concurred because, curiously enough,
+<i>none of them valued Watt's engine at a farthing</i>. Watt himself now
+began to despair, and his health failed; yet in 1774, when he had
+removed to Birmingham, he wrote to his father: "The fire-engine I have
+invented is now going, and answers much better than any other that has
+yet been made; and I expect that the invention will be very beneficial
+to me."</p>
+
+<p>A long series of experimental trials was, nevertheless, requisite before
+the engine could be brought to such perfection as to render it generally
+available to the public, and therefore profitable to its manufacturers.
+In January, 1775, six years of the patent had elapsed, and there seemed
+some probability of the remaining eight running out as fruitlessly. An
+application which was made for the extension of its term was
+unexpectedly opposed by the eloquence of Burke; but the orator and his
+associates failed, and the extension was accorded by Act of Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>The first practical employment of Watt's engines to any considerable
+extent was in the mining districts of Cornwall, where he himself was, in
+consequence, compelled to spend much of his time subsequent to 1775.
+Here he had to contend not only with natural obstacles in the dark
+abysses of deeply flooded mines, but with a rude and obstinate class of
+men as deeply flooded by inveterate prejudices. The result in the way of
+profit was not, however, satisfactory, notwithstanding the service to
+the mining interest was enormous. "It appears," says Watt, in 1780, "by
+our books, that Cornwall has hitherto eat up all the profits we have
+drawn from it, and all we have got by other places, and a good sum of
+our own money to the bargain."</p>
+
+<p>At this stage Watt himself was more fertile in mechanical inventions
+than in any other portion of his busy life. Taking his patents in their
+chronological order, the first (subsequent to that of 1769) was "For a
+new method of copying letters and other writings expeditiously," by
+means of copying <i>presses</i>. Of the same date was his invention of a
+machine "for drying linen and muslin by steam." On October 25, 1781, he
+took out his third patent (the second of the steam-engine series), "for
+certain new methods of applying the vibrating or reciprocating motion of
+steam or fire engines, to produce a continued rotative motion round an
+axis or centre, and thereby to give motion to the wheels of mills or
+other machines." One of these methods was that commonly known as the
+<i>sun-and-planet wheels</i>; they were five in all. A favorite employment of
+his in the workshops at Soho, in the later months of 1783 and earlier
+ones of 1784, was to teach his steam-engine, now become nearly as docile
+as it was powerful, to work a tilt-hammer for forging iron and making
+steel. "Three hundred blows per minute&mdash;a thing never done before,"
+filled him, as his biographer says, with feelings of excusable pride.
+Another patent in the steam-engine series, taken out in 1784, contained,
+besides other methods of converting a circular or angular motion into a
+perpendicular or rectilineal motion, the well-known and much-admired
+<i>parallel motion</i>, and the application of the steam-engine to give
+motion to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page260" name="page260"></a>(p. 260)</span> wheel-carriages for carrying persons and goods. To
+ascertain the exact number of strokes made by an engine during a given
+time, and thereby to check the cheats of the Cornish miners, Watt also
+invented the "Counter," with its several indexes. Among his leading
+improvements, introduced at various periods, were the <i>throttle-valve</i>,
+the application of the <i>governor</i>, the <i>barometer</i> or float, the
+<i>steam-gauge</i>, and the indicator. The term during which he seems to have
+thus combined the greatest maturity with the greatest activity of
+intellect, and the portion of his life which they comprehended, was from
+his fortieth to his fiftieth year. Yet it was a term of increased
+suffering from his acute sick-headaches, and remarkable for the
+infirmities over which he triumphed; notwithstanding, he himself
+complained of his "stupidity and want of the inventive faculty."</p>
+
+<p>Watt's chemical studies in 1783, and the calculations they involved from
+experiments made by foreign chemists, induced him to make a proposal for
+a philosophical <i>uniformity of weights and measures</i>; and he discussed
+this proposal with Priestley and Magellan. While Watt was examining the
+constituent parts of water, he had opportunities of familiar intercourse
+not only with Priestley, but with Withering, Keir, Edgeworth, Galton,
+Darwin, and his own partner, Boulton&mdash;all men above the average for
+their common interest in scientific inquiries. Dr. Parr frequently
+attended their meetings, and they kept up a correspondence with Sir
+William Herschel, Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Solander, and Afzelius. Mrs.
+Schimmelpenninck, who was greatly given to physiognomical studies, has
+left us this picture of Watt at this period.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Boulton was a man to rule society with dignity; Mr. Watt, to lead
+the contemplative life of a deeply introverted and patiently observant
+philosopher. He was one of the most complete specimens of the
+melancholic temperament. His head was generally bent forward, or leaning
+on his hand in meditation; his shoulders stooping, and his chest falling
+in; his limbs lank and unmuscular, and his complexion sallow. His
+intellectual development was magnificent; comparison and causality
+immense, with large ideality and constructiveness, individuality, an
+enormous concentrativeness and caution.</p>
+
+<p>"He had a broad Scottish accent; gentle, modest, and unassuming manners;
+yet, when he entered a room, men of letters, men of science, nay,
+military men, artists, ladies, even little children, thronged round him.
+Ladies would appeal to him on the best means of devising grates, curing
+smoky chimneys, warming their houses, and obtaining fast colors. I can
+speak from experience of his teaching me how to make a dulcimer and
+improve a Jew's harp."</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1786, Watt and Boulton visited Paris, on the invitation of
+the French Government, to superintend the erection of certain
+steam-engines, and especially to suggest improvements in the great
+hydraulic machine of Marly, which Watt himself designates a "venerable"
+work. In Paris Watt made many acquaintances, including Lavoisier,
+Laplace, Fourcroy, and others scarcely less eminent; and while here he
+discussed with Berthollet a new method of <i>bleaching</i> by chlorides, an
+invention of the latter which Watt subsequently introduced into England.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page261" name="page261"></a>(p. 261)</span> Meanwhile Watt had vigilantly to defend his patents at home,
+which were assailed by unworthy and surreptitious rivals as soon as it
+was proved that they were pecuniarily valuable. Some of the competing
+engines, as Watt himself described them, were simply asthmatic.
+"Hornblower's, at Radstock, was obliged to stand still once every ten
+minutes to snore and snort." "Some were like Evan's mill, <i>which was a
+gentlemanly mill</i>; it would go when it had nothing to do, but it refused
+to work." The legal proceedings, both in equity and at common law, which
+now became necessary, were numerous. One bill of costs, from 1796 to
+1800, amounted to between £5,000 and £6,000; and the mental and bodily
+labor, the anxiety and vexation, which were superadded, involved a
+fearful tax on the province of Watt's discoveries.</p>
+
+<p>With the year 1800 came the expiration of the privilege of the patent of
+1769, as extended by the statute of 1775; and also the dissolution of
+the original copartnership of Messrs. Boulton and Watt, then of
+five-and-twenty years' duration. The contract was renewed by their sons,
+the business having become so profitable that Watt and his children were
+provided with a source of independent income; and at the age of
+sixty-four the great inventor had personally realized some of the
+benefits he contemplated.</p>
+
+<p>Henceforth Watt's ingenuity became excursive, discretionary, almost
+capricious; but in every phase and form it continued to be beneficent.
+In 1808 he founded a prize in Glasgow College, as an acknowledgment of
+"the many favors that learned body had conferred upon him." In 1816 he
+made a donation to the town of Greenock, "to form the beginning of a
+scientific library" for the instruction of its young men. Nor, amid such
+donations, were others wanting on his part, such as true religion
+prescribes, to console the poor and relieve the suffering.</p>
+
+<p>In 1816, on a visit to Greenock, Watt made a voyage in a steamboat to
+Rothsay and back again. In the course of this experimental trip he
+pointed out to the engineer of the boat the method of "backing" the
+engine. With a foot-rule he demonstrated to him what he meant. Not
+succeeding, however, he at last, under the impulse of the ruling passion
+(and we must remember he was then eighty), threw off his overcoat, and
+putting his hand to the engine himself, showed the practical application
+of his lecture. Previously to this, the "backstroke" of the steamboat
+engine was either unknown or not generally known. The practice was to
+stop the engine entirely a considerable time before the vessel reached
+the point of mooring, in order to allow for the gradual and natural
+diminution of her speed.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to the application of steam power to <i>locomotion on land</i>,
+it is remarkable enough that, when Watt's attention was first directed,
+by his friend Robison, to the steam-engine, "he (Robison) at that time
+drew out an idea of applying the power to the moving of
+wheel-carriages." "But the scheme," adds Watt, "was not matured, and was
+soon abandoned on his going abroad."</p>
+
+<p>In 1769, however, when he heard that a linen-draper, one Moore, had
+taken out a patent for moving wheel-carriages by steam, he replied: "If
+linen-draper <span class="pagenum"><a id="page262" name="page262"></a>(p. 262)</span> Moore does not use my engine to drive his
+chaises, he can't drive them by steam." In the specification of his
+patent of 1784, he even described the principles and construction of
+"steam-engines which are applied to give motion to wheel-carriages for
+removing persons or goods, or other matters, from place to place," and
+in 1786, Watt himself had a steam-carriage "of some size under hand;"
+but his most developed plan was to move such carriages "on a hard smooth
+plane," and there is no evidence to show that he ever anticipated the
+union of the rail and wheel.</p>
+
+<p>Among Watt's mechanical recreations, soon after the date of the last of
+his steam-engine patents, were four plans of making lamps, which he
+describes in a letter to Argand; and for a long time lamps were made at
+Soho upon his principles, which gave a light surpassing, both in
+steadiness and brilliancy, anything of the kind that had appeared. About
+a year after, in 1788, he made "a pretty instrument for determining the
+specific gravities of liquids," having, he says to Dr. Black, improved
+on a hint he had taken.</p>
+
+<p>Watt also turned his "idle thoughts" toward the construction of an
+<i>arithmetical machine</i>, but he does not appear ever to have prosecuted
+this design further than by mentally considering the manner in which he
+could make it perform the processes of multiplication and division.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the present century Watt devised, for the Glasgow water-works,
+to bring pure spring-water across the Clyde, an articulated
+suction-pipe, with joints formed on the principle of those in a
+lobster's tail, and so made capable of accommodating itself to all the
+actual and possible bendings at the bottom of the river. This pipe was,
+moreover, executed at Soho from his plans, and was found to succeed
+perfectly.</p>
+
+<p>Watt describes, as his hobby, a <i>machine to copy sculpture</i>, suggested
+to him by an implement he had seen and admired in Paris in 1802, where
+it was used for tracing and multiplying the dies of medals. He foresaw
+the possibility of enlarging its powers so as to make it capable of
+working even on wood and marble, to do for solid masses and in hard
+materials what his copying machine of 1782 had already done for drawings
+and writings impressed upon flat surfaces of paper&mdash;to produce, in fact,
+a perfect fac-simile of the original model. He worked at this machine
+most assiduously, and his "likeness lathe," as he termed it, was set up
+in a garret, which, with all its mysterious contents, its tools, and
+models included, have been carefully preserved as he left them.</p>
+
+<p>It is gratifying to find that the charm of Watt's presence was not
+dimmed by age. "His friends," says Lord Jeffrey, speaking of a visit
+which he paid to Scotland when upward of eighty, "in that part of the
+country never saw him more full of intellectual vigor and colloquial
+animation, never more delightful or more instructive." It was then also
+that Sir Walter Scott, meeting him "surrounded by a little band of
+northern literati," saw and heard what he felt he was never to see or
+hear again&mdash;"the alert, kind, benevolent old man, his talents and fancy
+overflowing on every subject, with his attention alive to everyone's
+question his information at everyone's command." Campbell, the poet, who
+saw him later, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page263" name="page263"></a>(p. 263)</span> in the beginning of 1819 (he was then
+eighty-three), describes him as so full of anecdote, that he spent one
+of the most amusing days he had ever had with him. Lord Brougham, later
+still, in the summer of the same year, found his instructive
+conversation and his lively and even playful manner unchanged. But in
+the autumn of this year, on August 19th, he expired tranquilly at his
+house at Heathfield. He was buried at Handsworth. A tribute to his
+memory was but tardily rendered by the nation.</p>
+
+<p>Jeffrey and Arago added more elaborate tributes to Watt's genius; and
+Wordsworth has declared that he looked upon him, considering his
+magnitude and universality, "as perhaps the most extraordinary man that
+this country has ever produced." His noblest monument is, however, his
+own work.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>DR. EDWARD JENNER<br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">John Timbs, F.S.A.</span><br>
+
+(1749-1823)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img018" name="img018"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img018.jpg" width="250" height="250" alt="Dr. Edward Jenner." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Few of the many thousand ills which human flesh is heir to, have spread
+such devastation among the family of man as small-pox. Its universality
+has ranged from the untold tribes of savages to the silken baron of
+civilization; and its ravages on life and beauty have been shown in many
+a sad tale of domestic suffering. To stay the destroying hand of such a
+scourge, which by some has been identified with the Plague of Athens,
+was reserved for Edward Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination.</p>
+
+<p>The great fact can, however, be traced half a century before Jenner's
+time. In the journal of John Byron, F.R.S., under date June 3, 1725, it
+is recorded that: "At a meeting of the Royal Society, Sir Isaac Newton
+presiding, Dr. Jurin read a case of small-pox, where a girl who had been
+inoculated and had been vaccinated, was tried and had them not again;
+but another [a] boy, caught the small-pox from this girl, and had the
+confluent kind and died."</p>
+
+<p>This case occurred at Hanover. The inoculation of the girl seems to have
+failed entirely; it was suspected that she had not taken the true
+small-pox; <span class="pagenum"><a id="page264" name="page264"></a>(p. 264)</span> doubts, however, were removed, as a boy, who daily
+saw the girl, fell ill and died, "having had a very bad small-pox of the
+confluent sort." This is the first use of the word <i>vaccination</i>, or,
+more familiarly, cow-pox, which is an eruption arising from the
+insertion into the system of matter obtained from the eruption on the
+teats and udders of cows, and especially in Gloucestershire; it is also
+frequently denominated <i>vaccine matter</i>; and the whole affair,
+inoculation and its consequences, is called vaccination, from the Latin
+<i>vacca</i>, a cow.</p>
+
+<p>It is admitted that Jenner's merit lay in the scientific application of
+his knowledge of the fact that the chapped hands of milkers of cows
+sometimes proved a preventive of small-pox, and from those of them whom
+he endeavored to inoculate resisting the infection. These results were
+probably known far beyond Jenner's range, and long before his time; for
+we have respectable testimony of their having come within the
+observation of a Cheshire gentleman, who had been informed of them
+shortly after settling on his estate in Prestbury parish, in or about
+1740. This does not in the least detract from Jenner's merit, but shows
+that to his genius for observation, analogy, and experiment, we are
+indebted for this application of a simple fact, only incidentally
+remarked by others, but by Jenner rendered the stepping-stone to his
+great discovery&mdash;or, in other words, extending its benefits from a
+single parish in Gloucestershire to the whole world.</p>
+
+<p>We agree with a contemporary, that, "among all the names which ought to
+be consecrated by the gratitude of mankind, that of Jenner stands
+pre-eminent. It would be difficult, we are inclined to say impossible,
+to select from the catalogue of benefactors to human nature an
+individual who has contributed so largely to the preservation of life,
+and to the alleviation of suffering. Into whatever corner of the world
+the blessing of printed knowledge has penetrated, there also will the
+name of Jenner be familiar; but the fruits of his discovery have ripened
+in barbarous soils, where books have never been opened, and where the
+savage does not pause to inquire from what source he has derived relief.
+No improvement in the physical sciences can bear a parallel with that
+which ministers in every part of the globe to the prevention of
+deformity, and, in a great proportion, to the exemption from actual
+destruction."</p>
+
+<p>The ravages which the small-pox formerly committed are scarcely
+conceived or recollected by the present generation. An instance of death
+occurring after vaccination is now eagerly seized and commented upon;
+yet seventy years have not elapsed since this disease might fairly be
+termed the scourge of mankind, and an enemy more extensive and more
+insidious than even the plague. A family blighted in its fairest hopes
+through this terrible visitation was an every-day spectacle: the
+imperial House of Austria lost eleven of its offspring in fifty years.
+This instance is mentioned because it is historical; but in the obscure
+and unrecorded scenes of life this pest was often a still more merciless
+intruder.</p>
+
+<p>Edward Jenner was the third son of the Vicar of Berkeley, in
+Gloucestershire, where he was born, May 17, 1749. Before he was nine
+years of age he showed a growing taste for natural history, in forming a
+collection of the nests of the dormouse; and when at school at
+Cirencester he was fond of searching for fossils, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page265" name="page265"></a>(p. 265)</span> which abound
+in that neighborhood. He was articled to a surgeon at Sudbury, near
+Bristol, and at the end of his apprenticeship came to London, and
+studied under John Hunter, with whom he resided as a pupil for two years
+and formed a lasting friendship with that great man. In 1773 he returned
+to his native village, and commenced practice as a surgeon and
+apothecary, with great success. Nevertheless, he abstracted from the
+fatigues of country practice sufficient time to form a museum of
+specimens of comparative anatomy and natural history. He was much liked,
+was a man of lively and simple humor, and loved to tell his observation
+of nature in homely verse; and in 1788 he communicated to the Royal
+Society his curious paper on the cuckoo. At the same time he carried to
+London a drawing of the casual disease, as seen on the hands of the
+milkers, and showed it to Sir Everard Home and to others. John Hunter
+had alluded frequently to the fact in his lectures; Dr. Adams had heard
+of the cow-pox both from Hunter and Clive, and mentions it in his
+"Treatise on Poisons," published in 1795, three years previous to
+Jenner's own publication. Still, no one had the courage or the
+penetration to prosecute the inquiry except Jenner.</p>
+
+<p>Jenner now resolved to confine his practice to medicine, and obtained,
+in 1792, a degree of M.D. from the University of St. Andrew's.</p>
+
+<p>We now arrive at the great event of Jenner's life. While pursuing his
+professional education in the house of his master at Sudbury, a young
+countrywoman applied for advice; and the subject of small-pox being
+casually mentioned, she remarked she could not take the small-pox
+because she had had cow-pox; and he then learnt that it was a popular
+notion in that district, that milkers who had been infected with a
+peculiar eruption which sometimes occurred on the udder of the cow, were
+completely secure against the small-pox. The medical gentlemen of the
+district told Jenner that the security which it gave was not perfect;
+and Sir George Baker, the physician, treated it as a popular error. But
+Jenner thought otherwise; and although John Hunter and other eminent
+surgeons disregarded the subject, Jenner pursued it. He found at
+Berkeley that some persons, to whom it was impossible to give small-pox
+by inoculation, had had cow-pox; but that others who had had cow-pox yet
+received small-pox. This led to the doctor's discovery that the cow was
+subject to a certain eruption, which had the power of guarding from
+small-pox; and next, that it might be possible to propagate the cow-pox,
+and with it security from the small-pox, first from the cow to the human
+body, and thence from one person to another. Here, then, was an
+important discovery, that matter from the cow, intentionally inserted
+into the body, gave a slighter ailment than when received otherwise, and
+yet had the same effect of completely preventing small-pox. But of what
+advantage was it for mankind that the cows of Gloucestershire possessed
+a matter thus singularly powerful? How were persons living at a distance
+to derive benefit from this great discovery? Dr. Jenner, having
+inoculated several persons from a cow, took the matter from the human
+vesicles thus produced, and inoculated others, and others from them
+again; thus making it pass in succession through many individuals, and
+all with the same good effect in preventing small-pox.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page266" name="page266"></a>(p. 266)</span> An opportunity occurred of making a trial of the latter on May
+14, 1796 (a day still commemorated by the annual festival at Berlin),
+when a boy, aged eight years, was vaccinated with matter from the hands
+of a milkmaid; the experiment succeeded, and he was inoculated for
+small-pox on July 1st following without the least effect. Dr. Jenner
+then extended his experiments, and in 1798 published his first memoir on
+the subject. He had originally intended to communicate his results to
+the Royal Society, but was admonished not to do so, lest it should
+injure the character which he had previously acquired among scientific
+persons by his paper on the natural history of the cuckoo. In the above
+work Dr. Jenner announces the security against small-pox afforded by the
+true cow-pox, and also traces the origin of that disease in the cow to a
+similar affection of the heel of the horse.</p>
+
+<p>The method, however, met with much opposition, until, in the following
+year, thirty-three leading physicians and forty eminent surgeons of
+London signed an earnest expression of their confidence in the efficacy
+of the cow-pox. The royal family of England exerted themselves to
+encourage Jenner; the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of York, the king, the
+Prince of Wales, and the queen bestowed great attention upon Jenner. The
+incalculable utility of cow-pox was at last evinced; and observation and
+experience furnished evidence enough to satisfy the Baillies and
+Heberdens, the Monros and Gregorys of Britain, as well as the physicians
+of Europe, India, and America. The new practice now began to supersede
+the old plan pursued by the Small-pox Hospital, which had been founded
+for inoculation. The two systems were each pursued until 1808, when the
+hospital governors discontinued small-pox inoculation.</p>
+
+<p>A committee of Parliament was now appointed to consider the claims of
+Jenner upon the gratitude of his country. It was clearly proved that he
+had converted into scientific demonstration a tradition of the
+peasantry. Two parliamentary grants, of £10,000 and £20,000, were voted
+to him. In 1808 the National Vaccine Establishment was formed by
+Government, and placed under his direction. Honors were profusely
+showered upon him by various foreign princes, as well as by the
+principal learned bodies of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Jenner passed the remainder of his years principally at Berkeley and
+at Cheltenham, continuing to the last, his inquiries on the great object
+of his life. He died at Berkeley, in February, 1823, at the green old
+age of seventy-four: his remains lie in the chancel of the parish church
+of Berkeley. A marble statue by Sievier has been erected to his memory
+in the nave of Gloucester Cathedral; and another statue of him has been
+placed in a public building at Cheltenham. Five medals have been struck
+in honor of Jenner: three by the German nation; one by the surgeons of
+the British navy; and the fifth by the London Medical Society.</p>
+
+<a id="img019" name="img019"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img019.jpg" width="400" height="483" alt="" title="">
+<p>The First Vaccination&mdash;Dr. Jenner.</p></div>
+
+<p>Dr. Jenner was endowed with a rare quality of mind, which it may be both
+interesting and beneficial to sketch. A singular originality of thought
+was his leading characteristic. He appeared to have naturally inherited
+what in others is the result of protracted study. He seemed to think
+from originality of perception <span class="pagenum"><a id="page267" name="page267"></a>(p. 267)</span> alone, and not from
+induction. He arrived by a glance at inferences which would have
+occupied the laborious conclusions of most men. In human and animal
+pathology, in comparative anatomy, and in geology, he perceived facts
+and formed theories instantaneously, and with a spirit of inventive
+penetration which distanced the slower approaches of more learned men.
+But if his powers of mind were singularly great, the qualities which
+accompanied them were still more felicitous. He possessed the most
+singular amenity of disposition with the highest feeling, the rarest
+simplicity united to the highest genius. In the great distinction and
+the superior society to which his discovery introduced him, the native
+cast of his character was unchanged. Among the great monarchs of Europe,
+who, when in Great Britain, solicited his acquaintance, he was the
+unaltered Dr. Jenner of his birthplace. In the other moral points of his
+character, affection, friendship, beneficence, and liberality were
+pre-eminent In religion, his belief was equally remote from laxity and
+fanaticism; and he observed to an intimate friend, not long before his
+death, that he wondered not that the people were ungrateful to him for
+his discovery, but he was surprised that they were ungrateful to God for
+the benefits of which he was the humble means.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>ROBERT FULTON<a id="footnotetag8" name="footnotetag8"></a><a href="#footnote8" title="Go to footnote 8"><span class="small">[8]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Oliver Optic</span><br>
+
+(1765-1815)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img020" name="img020"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img020.jpg" width="250" height="267" alt="Robert Fulton." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Very few inventors have achieved success in giving to the world new or
+improved methods of carrying on the business of life without long and
+hard study, repeated experiments and failures, and trying struggles with
+opposing elements. Many have labored through long years of poverty and
+obscurity to dazzle their fellow-beings in the end by the triumph of
+genius. The idea of an inventor has almost become coupled with that of
+anxiety, patient or impatient waiting, trials, and hardships. They are
+usually enthusiasts in the special pursuit to which they devote
+themselves, and the coldness and incredulity of those whose approval
+they seek to win, wear heavily upon them. The chilling common-sense of
+men more practical than themselves overwhelms them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page268" name="page268"></a>(p. 268)</span> If the wonderful improvements of the present and the past age
+could be placed in comparison with the attempts, the struggles, to
+accomplish what has now been achieved, the list of failures would far
+outnumber that of successes. Many of those who have rendered priceless
+blessings to their own and after generations by the production of
+wonderful machines or methods from the fine fibre of their brains, were
+plundered and buffeted, even in the midst of their grand successes, to
+such a degree that it requires a lofty comprehension to determine
+whether their lives were triumphs or defeats. Sometimes the failure of
+one generation becomes the success of the next.</p>
+
+<p>Born the same year that gave Robert Fulton to the world was Eli Whitney,
+who really made "cotton king," so that the great staple of the South
+yielded millions upon millions of dollars to the planters; but he might
+have died a beggar, so far as his marvellous invention affected his
+fortunes. Before he had fully completed his machine for separating the
+seeds from the cotton, which only two persons had been permitted to see,
+his workshop was broken open, and it was stolen. His idea was
+incorporated in other machines before he had obtained his patent, though
+it was only his own that transmuted cotton into gold. False reports, the
+repudiation of contracts for royalties fairly made, the refusal of
+Congress, through Southern influence, to renew his patent, constant
+litigation to protect his rights, harassed his life, and robbed him of
+the pecuniary results of his success. Defeated, he gave up the battle,
+devoted his attention to the manufacture of firearms, and finally made a
+fortune in this business. Fulton's experience was not very different.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, important discoveries in methods and mechanical
+appliances have been made by accident, as it were, and fortunes accrued
+from very little labor or study; but these are the exceptions rather
+than the rule.</p>
+
+<p>It would be difficult to estimate the influence upon the prosperity of
+the United States of steam-navigation. It came but a few years after the
+organization of the Federal Government, when the greater portion of the
+territorial extent of the country was a wilderness, and preceded the
+general use of railroads by a quarter of a century. Transportation on
+the inland waters of the nation was slow, difficult, and expensive, and
+the introduction of the steamboat upon its great lakes and rivers,
+notably upon the latter, was a new era in its history. On the great
+streams of the West flatboats floated for weeks, laden with the
+productions of the States, on their way to a market, where days or hours
+are sufficient at the present time. Between the metropolis of the nation
+and the capital of New York, the sloops, which were the only means of
+communication by water, required an average of four days to make the
+trip of about one hundred and fifty miles, while to-day it is
+accomplished in half a day or less.</p>
+
+<p>Now all the navigable rivers of the country are alive with steamboats,
+and the growth and development of the States have been mainly indebted
+to the introduction of steam navigation. On the great lakes, though more
+available for transportation by means of sailing vessels, the same
+powerful agency has achieved wonders, and all of them are now covered by
+lines of steamers, by which, either <span class="pagenum"><a id="page269" name="page269"></a>(p. 269)</span> as tow-boats or
+independent vessels, a large proportion of the inland commerce of the
+nation is carried on. On the ocean the result of the introduction of
+steam-navigation is even more impressive, and nations separated by
+thousands of miles of rolling billows now join hands, as it were, with
+hearts commercially united, if not more intimately, through the medium
+of peace-giving commerce, of which thousands of gigantic steamers are
+the angel-messengers. On the Atlantic a score or more of them leave the
+one side for the other every week, and at the present time a merchant
+may breakfast in New York on Saturday, and dine in London the next
+Saturday.</p>
+
+<p>It is now conceded, both in Europe and America, that the world is
+indebted to Robert Fulton for the practical application of steam to the
+purposes of navigation. Whatever has been claimed for or by others in
+regard to the priority of the invention or application of the mighty
+power of steam to the propulsion of vessels, Fulton was "the first to
+apply it with any degree of practical success," as an English work
+states it. As one who labored for years over the idea which came from
+his own brain, though it also came to others, who wellnigh sacrificed
+his own life in its improvement, and who achieved the crowning glory of
+its utility, he is certainly entitled to be regarded and honored as the
+Father of Steam-Navigation.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Fulton was born in a small village near Lancaster, in the State
+of Pennsylvania, in the year 1765. He was the son of a poor man of
+Scotch-Irish descent, who died when his son was only three years old. He
+obtained only a common-school education, which he afterward increased by
+his own efforts. He early manifested a taste for, and considerable skill
+in, drawing and painting, and he selected this art as his profession,
+though he was more inclined to mechanical occupations, and spent his
+leisure hours in the shops of the workmen in his vicinity. He was
+somewhat precocious in his development, and at the age of seventeen he
+established himself as a portrait painter. He could hardly have attained
+to any high standard in art, though it appears that he had considerable
+success in his occupation, for at the age of twenty-one he had purchased
+a small farm in the western part of the State, where he placed his
+mother, indicating that he had a proper filial regard for the welfare of
+his remaining parent. It was evident from this success that he had
+decided talent and that it attracted the attention of others.</p>
+
+<p>He was advised to visit England and place himself under the tuition of
+Benjamin West, the eminent American painter, who had achieved
+distinguished success in art. He followed this advice, was kindly
+received by the great artist, and remained as an inmate of his home for
+some years. In the palaces and mansions of the British nobility were
+treasured up many of the most noted pictures of the day and of the past.
+In order to see, study, and copy these, Fulton procured letters of
+introduction which gave him admission to these paintings. He resided for
+some time in the stately mansions of the Duke of Bridgewater and Earl
+Stanhope. Both of these peers were largely interested in making internal
+improvements in England, especially in promoting inland navigation by
+canals.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page270" name="page270"></a>(p. 270)</span> The duke was the possessor of immense wealth, and he had
+invested largely in companies connected with the canal system. Through
+him Fulton became interested in the same subject, and his mechanical
+tastes and talent drew him in that direction. The result was that he
+abandoned his easel and became a civil engineer, a profession hardly
+known by that name in the early part of this century. Earl Stanhope was
+also of a mechanical turn of mind, and had projected some important
+enterprises. At that time he was engaged upon a scheme which afterward
+filled up so much of the existence of Fulton&mdash;the application of steam
+to navigation.</p>
+
+<p>The earl had devised a method of accomplishing the result, and had
+caused a small craft to be built which was to be propelled by a series
+of floats, by some compared to the paddles of a canoe, and by others to
+the feet of water-fowls. He described his plan to Fulton, who did not
+regard it as practicable, and stated plainly the reasons for his belief.
+The earl clung to his idea, highly as he appreciated the talents of the
+critic. The inventor resided at Birmingham about two years, and was
+employed in a subordinate capacity at his newly adopted profession for
+the greater portion of the time. In this city he made the acquaintance
+of Watt, who had developed the steam-engine from a mere pumping-machine
+to something near what it is at the present time.</p>
+
+<p>Fulton's inventive genius was exercised during his residence at
+Birmingham, and he devised an improvement of the machine for sawing
+marble, from which he reaped both honor and profit. He produced a
+machine for spinning flax, and for the manufacture of ropes, and also
+one for excavating canals or river bottoms, for which purpose many such
+are now in use. As an author he wrote a work on canals, and published a
+treatise on the same subject in a London paper. He had a plan for the
+use of inclined planes in changing the level of the water for boats on
+canals, in place of locks, after the manner of the Chinese, claiming
+that greater elevations could be overcome in this manner; but it was
+never adopted.</p>
+
+<p>In 1797 Fulton went to Paris, where he resided seven years, as the
+terrors of the French Revolution were passing away. At this period he
+had invented what is now called a torpedo, largely used in modern
+warfare for the protection of harbors. He devised a submarine boat to
+operate these destructive weapons, which was not a success. He
+demonstrated what he claimed for the torpedo in the destruction of a
+brig of two hundred tons; but he failed to procure the adoption of this
+more modern engine of warfare by either France or England, and he had
+the honor to be snubbed by Napoleon I. In 1806 he returned to New York,
+where he labored for the recognition and introduction of the torpedo. He
+was encouraged by Jefferson and Madison, and Congress appropriated money
+for experiments; but the naval officers reported against him, and
+nothing came of his efforts.</p>
+
+<p>In Paris he had made the acquaintance of Chancellor Livingston, then the
+American minister to France, who was interested in Fulton's work, and
+who soon entered into business relations with him in connection with it.
+He was a man of abundant fortune, while the inventor was comparatively
+poor; occupied an <span class="pagenum"><a id="page271" name="page271"></a>(p. 271)</span> elevated social position, and was a person
+of great influence. He obtained a grant of the monopoly of
+steam-navigation from the State of New York. Fulton took out two patents
+for his invention; but unfortunately they were not adequate to his
+protection, for they covered only the application of the steam-engine to
+the turning of a crank in producing the rotary motion of the
+paddle-wheels.</p>
+
+<p>While in England Fulton had contracted with Watt for the building of
+such an engine as he desired, without stating the purpose for which it
+was to be used. This engine reached New York at about the same time as
+the inventor. He made his plans for the construction of the boat, which
+was to be of different form and proportions from ordinary vessels, and
+it was completed and fitted out with its engine during the year
+following his return. Not long before this event, when he found the sum
+of money Mr. Livingston had provided to complete the steamboat was
+nearly exhausted, Fulton attempted to sell an interest in his exclusive
+grant in order to raise funds to supply the deficiency; but so little
+faith existed in the success of his enterprise that he could find no one
+who had the courage to purchase it. But the vessel was finished, and a
+trial trip was made in her, to which gentlemen of science and general
+intelligence were invited, most of them, like the rest of the world,
+sceptics and unbelievers. A few minutes served to satisfy these men that
+the steamboat was a success, and that the problem of steam-navigation
+had been solved in its favor. It was the hour of Fulton's triumph.</p>
+
+<p>The strange craft, to which the name of Clermont had been given, soon
+made a trip to Albany, accomplishing the distance in thirty-two hours,
+or one-third of the average time of the sloops, and making the return in
+thirty. Doubters and cavillers were silenced, and regular trips were
+made till the ice closed the river for the season. During the winter the
+Clermont was lengthened to one hundred and forty feet, improved in many
+respects, gaudily painted, and looked upon as a "floating palace."
+Another steamboat, called the Car of Neptune, was built, and soon a
+contract for five more was placed. The practical triumph had been
+achieved, and from that small beginning has come forth the mighty
+steam-marine of the present time.</p>
+
+<p>Fulton was married to Miss Harriet Livingston, a niece of the
+Chancellor, and was the father of four children. His business affairs
+were in anything but a prosperous condition. The State of New Jersey
+contested his monopoly, which proved to have been unconstitutionally
+granted. Fitch, or his successors, who had made some successes in the
+same line, endeavored to supplant him, and his patents were worthless.
+He was embarrassed by constant litigation, and his last years were full
+of trials and anxiety. He died February 24, 1815, at the age of fifty.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig004.jpg" width="300" height="79" alt="Author signature. William S. Adams." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page272" name="page272"></a>(p. 272)</span> WILLIAM WILBERFORCE<br>
+
+(1759-1833)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img021" name="img021"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img021.jpg" width="250" height="312" alt="William Wilberforce." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>William Wilberforce, whose name a heartfelt, enlightened, and unwearied
+philanthropy, directing talents of the highest order, has enrolled among
+those of the most illustrious benefactors of mankind, was born August
+24, 1759, in Hull, England, where his ancestors had been long and
+successfully engaged in trade. By his father's death he was left an
+orphan at an early age. He received the chief part of his education at
+the grammar school of Pockington, in Yorkshire, and at St. John's
+College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow-commoner about 1776 or
+1777. When just of age, and apparently before taking his B.A. degree, he
+was returned for his native town at the general election of 1780. In
+1784 he was returned again, but being also chosen member for Yorkshire
+he elected to sit for that great county, which he continued to represent
+until the year 1812, during six successive Parliaments. From 1812 to
+1825, when he retired from Parliament, he was returned by Lord Calthorpe
+for the borough of Bramber. His politics were in general those of Mr.
+Pitt's party, and his first prominent appearance was in 1783, in
+opposition to Mr. Fox's India Bill. In 1786 he introduced and carried
+through the Commons a bill for the amendment of the criminal code, which
+was roughly handled by the Lord Chancellor, Thurlow, and rejected in the
+House of Lords without a division.</p>
+
+<p>At the time when Mr. Wilberforce was rising into manhood, the inquiry
+into the slave trade had engaged in a slight degree the attention of the
+public. To the Quakers belongs the high honor of having taken the lead
+in denouncing that unjust and unchristian traffic. At the beginning of
+the eighteenth century, during the life of Penn, the Quakers of
+Pennsylvania passed a censure upon it, and from time to time the Society
+of Friends expressed their disapprobation of the deportation of negroes,
+until, in 1761, they completed their good work by a resolution to disown
+all such as continued to be engaged in it. Occasionally the question was
+brought before magistrates, whether a slave became entitled to his
+liberty upon landing in England. In 1765 Granville Sharp came forward as
+the protector of a negro, who, having been abandoned and cast upon the
+world in <span class="pagenum"><a id="page273" name="page273"></a>(p. 273)</span> disease and misery by his owner, was healed and
+assisted through the charity of Mr. Sharp's brother. Recovering his
+value with his health, he was claimed and seized by his master, and
+would have been shipped to the colonies, as many Africans were, but for
+the prompt and resolute interference of Mr. Sharp. In several similar
+cases the same gentleman came forward successfully; but the general
+question was not determined, or even argued, until 1772, when the
+celebrated case of the negro Somerset was brought before the Court of
+King's Bench, which adjudged, after a deliberate hearing, that in
+England the right of the master over the slave could not be maintained.
+The general question was afterward, in 1778, decided still more
+absolutely by the Scotch Courts, in the case of Wedderburn <i>vs.</i> Knight.
+In 1783 an event occurred well qualified to rouse the feelings of the
+nation, and call its attention to the atrocities of which the slave
+trade was the cause and pretext. An action was brought by certain
+underwriters against the owners of the ship Zong, on the ground that the
+captain had caused 132 weak, sickly slaves to be thrown overboard for
+the purpose of claiming their value, for which the plaintiffs would not
+have been liable if the cargo had died a natural death. The fact of the
+drowning was admitted, and defended on the plea that want of water had
+rendered it necessary, though it appeared that the crew had not been put
+upon short allowance. It now seems incredible that no criminal
+proceeding should have been instituted against the perpetrators of this
+wholesale murder.</p>
+
+<p>In 1785 the Vice-chancellor of Cambridge proposed as the subject for the
+Bachelor's Prize Essay, the question, Is it allowable to enslave men
+without their consent? Thomas Clarkson, who had gained the prize in the
+preceding year, again became a candidate. Conceiving that the thesis,
+though couched in general terms, had an especial reference to the
+African slave trade, he went to London to make inquiries on the subject.
+Investigation brought under his view a mass of cruelties and
+abominations which engrossed his thoughts and shocked his imagination.
+By night and day they haunted him; and he has described in lively colors
+the intense pain which this composition, undertaken solely in the spirit
+of honorable rivalry, inflicted on him. He gained the prize, but found
+it impossible to discard the subject from his thoughts. In the
+succeeding autumn, after great struggles of mind, he resolved to give up
+his plan for entering the Church, and devoted time, health, and
+substance (to use his own words) to "seeing these calamities to an end."
+In sketching the progress of this great measure, the name of Wilberforce
+alone will be presented to view; and it is our duty, therefore, in the
+first place, to make honorable mention of him who first roused
+Wilberforce in the cause, and whose athletic vigor and indomitable
+perseverance surmounted danger, difficulties, fatigues, and
+discouragements which few men could have endured, in the first great
+object of collecting evidence of the cruelties habitually perpetrated in
+the slave trade.</p>
+
+<p>In the first stage of his proceedings, Mr. Clarkson, in the course of
+his application to members of Parliament, called on Mr. Wilberforce, who
+stated that "the subject had often employed his thoughts and was near
+his heart." He inquired <span class="pagenum"><a id="page274" name="page274"></a>(p. 274)</span> into the authorities for the
+statements laid before him, and became not only convinced of, but
+impressed with, the paramount duty of abolishing so hateful a traffic.
+Occasional meetings of those who were alike interested were held at his
+house; and in May, 1787, a committee was formed, of which Wilberforce
+became the Parliamentary leader. Early in 1788 he gave notice of his
+intention to bring the subject before the House; but, owing to his
+severe indisposition, that task was ultimately undertaken by Mr. Pitt,
+who moved and carried a resolution, pledging the House in the ensuing
+session to enter on the consideration of the subject. Accordingly, May
+12, 1789, Mr. Wilberforce moved a series of resolutions, founded on a
+report of the Privy Council, exposing the iniquity and cruelty of the
+traffic in slaves, the mortality which it occasioned among white as well
+as black men, and the neglect of health and morals by which the natural
+increase of the race in the West India islands was checked; and
+concluding with a declaration that if the causes by which that increase
+was checked were removed, no considerable inconvenience would result
+from discontinuing the importation of African slaves. Burke, Pitt, and
+Fox supported the resolutions. Mr. Wilberforce's speech was
+distinguished by eloquence and earnestness, and by its unanswerable
+appeals to the first principles of justice and religion. The
+consideration of the subject was ultimately adjourned to the following
+session. In that, and in two subsequent sessions, the motions were
+renewed; and the effect of pressing such a subject upon the attention of
+the country was to open the eyes of many who would willingly have kept
+them closed, yet could not deny the existence of the evils so forced on
+their view. In 1792 Mr. Wilberforce's motion for the abolition of the
+slave trade was met by a proposal to insert in it the word "gradually;"
+and, in pursuance of the same policy, Mr. Dundas introduced a bill to
+provide for its discontinuance in 1800. The date was altered to 1796,
+and in that state the bill passed the Commons, but was stopped in the
+Upper House by a proposal to hear evidence upon it. Mr. Wilberforce
+annually renewed his efforts, and brought every new argument to bear
+upon the question which new discoveries, or the events of the times,
+produced. In 1799 the friends of the measure resolved on letting it
+repose for awhile, and for five years Mr. Wilberforce contented himself
+with moving for certain papers; but he took an opportunity of assuring
+the House that he had not grown cool in the cause, and that he would
+renew the discussion in a future session. On May 30, 1804, he once more
+moved for leave to bring in his bill for the abolition of the slave
+trade, in a speech of great eloquence and effect. He took the
+opportunity of making a powerful appeal to the Irish members, before
+whom, in consequence of the Union, this question was now for the first
+time brought, and the greater part of whom supported it. The decision
+showed a majority of 124 to 49 in his favor; and the bill was carried
+through the Commons, but was again postponed in the House of Lords. In
+1805 he renewed his motion; but on this occasion it was lost in the
+Commons by over-security among the friends of the measure. But when Mr.
+Fox and Lord Granville took office in 1806, the abolition was brought
+forward by the ministers, most of whom supported it, though it was not
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page275" name="page275"></a>(p. 275)</span> made a government question in consequence of several members
+of the cabinet opposing it. The attorney-general (Sir A. Pigott) brought
+in a bill, which was passed into a law, prohibiting the slave trade in
+the conquered colonies, and excluding British subjects from engaging in
+the foreign slave trade; and Mr. Fox at Mr. Wilberforce's special
+request, introduced a resolution pledging the House to take the earliest
+measures for effectually abolishing the whole slave trade. This
+resolution was carried by a majority of 114 to 15; and January 2, 1807,
+Lord Granville brought forward, in the House of Lords, a bill for the
+abolition of the slave trade, which passed safely through both Houses of
+Parliament. As, however, the king was believed to be unfriendly to the
+measure, some alarm was felt by its friends, lest its fate might still
+be affected by the dismissal of the ministers, which had been determined
+upon. Those fears were groundless; for though they received orders to
+deliver up the seals of their offices on March 25th, the royal assent
+was given by commission by the Lord Chancellor Erskine on the same day;
+and thus the last act of the administration was to conclude a contest,
+maintained by prejudice and interest during twenty years, for the
+support of what Mr. Pitt denominated "the greatest practical evil that
+ever afflicted the human race."</p>
+
+<p>Among other testimonies to Mr. Wilberforce's merits, we are not inclined
+to omit that of Sir James Mackintosh, who in his journal, May 23, 1808,
+speaks thus of Wilberforce on the "Abolition." This refers to a pamphlet
+on the slave trade which Mr. Wilberforce had published in 1806: "Almost
+as much enchanted by Mr. Wilberforce's book as by his conduct. He is the
+very model of a reformer. Ardent without turbulence, mild without
+timidity or coolness; neither yielding to difficulties nor disturbed or
+exasperated by them; patient and meek yet intrepid; persisting for
+twenty years through good report and evil report; just and charitable
+even to his most malignant enemies; unwearied in every experiment to
+disarm the prejudices of his more rational and disinterested opponents,
+and supporting the zeal, without dangerously exciting the passions of
+his adherents."</p>
+
+<p>The rest of Mr. Wilberforce's parliamentary conduct was consistent with
+his behavior on this question. In debates chiefly political he rarely
+took a forward part; but where religion and morals were directly
+concerned, points on which few cared to interfere, and where a leader
+was wanted, he never shrunk from the advocacy of his opinions. He was a
+supporter of Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform; he
+condemned the encouragement of gambling, in the shape of lotteries
+established by government; he insisted on the cruelty of employing boys
+of tender age as chimney-sweepers; he attempted to procure a legislative
+enactment against duelling, after the hostile meeting between Pitt and
+Tierney; and on the renewal of the East India Company's charter in 1816,
+he gave his zealous support to the propagation of Christianity in
+Hindostan, in opposition to those who, as has been more recently done in
+the West Indies, represented the employment of missionaries to be
+inconsistent with the preservation of the British empire. It is
+encouraging to observe that, with the exception of the one <span class="pagenum"><a id="page276" name="page276"></a>(p. 276)</span>
+levelled against duelling, all these measures, however violently opposed
+and unfairly censured, have been carried in a more or less perfect form.</p>
+
+<p>As an author, Mr. Wilberforce's claim to notice is chiefly derived from
+his treatise entitled "A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious
+System of Professing Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes in this
+Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity." The object of it was to
+show that the standard of life generally adopted by those classes not
+only fell short of, but was inconsistent with, the doctrines of the
+gospel. It has justly been applauded as a work of no common courage, not
+from the asperity of its censures, for it breathes throughout a spirit
+of gentleness and love, but on the joint consideration of the
+unpopularity of the subject and the writer's position. The Bishop of
+Calcutta, in his introductory essay, justly observes that "the author,
+in attempting it, risked everything dear to a public man and a
+politician as such, consideration, weight, ambition, reputation." And
+Scott, the divine, one of the most fearless and ardent of men, viewed
+the matter in the same light; for he wrote: "Taken in all its probable
+effects, I do sincerely think such a stand for vital Christianity has
+not been made in my memory. He has come out beyond my expectations." Of
+a work so generally known we shall not describe the tendency more at
+large. It is said to have gone through about twenty editions in Britain,
+since the publication in 1797, and more in America; and to have been
+translated into most European languages.</p>
+
+<p>In the discharge of his parliamentary duties, Mr. Wilberforce was
+punctual and active beyond his apparent strength; and those who further
+recollect his diligent attendance on a vast variety of public meetings
+and committees connected with religious and charitable purposes, will
+wonder how a frame naturally weak should so long have endured the wear
+of such exertion. In 1788, when his illness was a matter of deep concern
+to the Abolitionists, Dr. Warren said that he had not stamina to last a
+fortnight. No doubt his bodily powers were greatly aided by the placid
+and happy frame of mind which he habitually enjoyed; but it is important
+to relate his own opinion, as delivered by an ear-witness, on the
+physical benefits which he derived from a strict abstinence from
+temporal affairs on Sundays: "I have often heard him assert that he
+never could have sustained the labor and stretch of mind required in his
+early political life, if it had not been for the rest of his Sabbath;
+and that he could name several of his contemporaries in the vortex of
+political cares, whose minds had actually given way under the stress of
+intellectual labor so as to bring on a premature death or the still more
+dreadful catastrophe of insanity and suicide, who, humanly speaking,
+might have been preserved in health, if they would but conscientiously
+have observed the Sabbath."</p>
+
+<p>In 1797 Mr. Wilberforce married Miss Spooner, daughter of an eminent
+banker at Birmingham. Four sons survived him. He died, after a gradual
+decline, July 29, 1833, in Cadogan Place. He directed that his funeral
+should be conducted without the smallest pomp; but his orders were
+disregarded, in compliance with a memorial addressed to his relatives by
+many of the most distinguished <span class="pagenum"><a id="page277" name="page277"></a>(p. 277)</span> men of all parties, and couched
+in the following terms: "We, the undersigned Members of both Houses of
+Parliament, being anxious, upon public grounds, to show our respect for
+the memory of the late William Wilberforce, and being also satisfied
+that public honors can never be more fitly bestowed than upon such
+benefactors of mankind, earnestly request that he may be buried in
+Westminster Abbey, and that we and others who may agree with us in these
+sentiments may have permission to attend his funeral." The attendance of
+both Houses was numerous. Mr. Wilberforce was interred within a few
+yards of his great contemporaries, Pitt, Fox, and Canning.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>SIR HUMPHRY DAVY<br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">John Timbs, F.S.A.</span><br>
+
+(1778-1829)</h3>
+
+<a id="img022" name="img022"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img022.jpg" width="250" height="286" alt="Sir Humphry Davy." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>The boyhood of Davy has been sketched in some of the most fascinating
+pieces of biography ever written: the annals of science do not furnish
+us with any record that equals the school-days and self-education of the
+boy, Humphry, in popular interest; and, unlike many bright mornings,
+this commencement in a few years led to a brilliant meridian, and, by a
+succession of discoveries, accomplished more in relation to change of
+theory and extension of science, than in the most ardent and ambitious
+moments of youth he could either hope to effect or imagine possible.</p>
+
+<p>Humphry Davy was born at Penzance, in 1778; was a healthy, strong, and
+active child, and could speak fluently before he was two years old;
+copied engravings before he learned to write, and could recite part of
+the "Pilgrim's Progress" before he could well read it. At the age of
+five years, he could gain a good account of the contents of a book while
+turning over the leaves; and he retained this remarkable faculty through
+life. He excelled in telling stories to his playmates; loved fishing,
+and collecting, and painting birds and fishes; he had his own little
+garden; and recorded his impressions of romantic scenery in verse of no
+ordinary merit. To his self-education, however, he owed almost
+everything. He studied with intensity mathematics, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page278" name="page278"></a>(p. 278)</span>
+metaphysics, and physiology; before he was nineteen he began to study
+chemistry, and in four months proposed a new hypothesis on heat and
+light, to which he won over the experienced Dr. Beddoes. With his
+associate, Gregory Watt (son of the celebrated James Watt) he collected
+specimens of rocks and minerals. He made considerable progress in
+medicine; he experimented zealously, especially on the effects of the
+gases in respiration; at the age of twenty-one he had breathed nitrous
+oxide, and nearly lost his life from breathing carburetted hydrogen.
+Next year he commenced the galvanic experiments which led to some of his
+greatest discoveries. In 1802 he began his brilliant scientific career
+at the Royal Institution, where he remained till 1812; here he
+constructed his great voltaic battery of 2,000 double plates of copper
+and zinc, and commenced the mineralogical collection now in the Museum.
+His lectures were often attended by one thousand persons: his youth, his
+simplicity, his natural eloquence, his chemical knowledge, his happy
+illustrations and well-conducted experiments, and the auspicious state
+of science, insured Davy great and instant success.</p>
+
+<p>The enthusiastic admiration with which he was hailed can hardly be
+imagined now. Not only men of the highest rank&mdash;men of science, men of
+letters, and men of trade&mdash;but women of fashion and blue-stockings, old
+and young, pressed into the theatre of the Institution to cover him with
+applause. His greatest labors were his discovery of the decomposition of
+the fixed alkalies, and the re-establishment of the simple nature of
+chlorine; his other researches were the investigation of astringent
+vegetables in connection with the art of tanning; the analysis of rocks
+and minerals in connection with geology; the comprehensive subject of
+agricultural chemistry; and galvanism and electro-chemical science. He
+was also an early, but unsuccessful, experimenter in the photographic
+art.</p>
+
+<p>Of the lazy conservative spirit and ludicrous indolence in science,
+which at this time attempted to hoodwink the public, a quaint instance
+is recorded of a worthy professor of chemistry at Aberdeen. He had
+allowed some years to pass since Davy's brilliant discovery of potassium
+and its congeneric metals, without a word about them in his lectures. At
+length the learned doctor was concussed by his colleagues on the
+subject, and he condescended to notice it. "Both potash and soda are now
+said to be metallic oxides," said he; "the oxides, in fact, of two
+metals, called potassium and sodium by the discoverer of them, one Davy,
+in London, a verra troublesome person in chemistry."</p>
+
+<p>Turn we, however, to the brightest event in our chemical philosopher's
+career. By his unrivalled series of practical discoveries, Davy acquired
+such a reputation for success among his countrymen, that his aid was
+invoked on every great occasion. The properties of fire-damp, or
+carburetted hydrogen, in coal-mines had already been ascertained by Dr.
+Henry. When this gas is mingled in certain proportions with atmospheric
+air, it forms a mixture which kindles upon the contact of a lighted
+candle, and often explodes with tremendous violence, killing the men and
+horses, and projecting much of the contents of the mine through the
+shafts or apertures like an enormous piece of artillery. At this time, a
+detonation of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page279" name="page279"></a>(p. 279)</span> fire-damp occurred within a coal-mine in the
+north of England, so dreadful that it destroyed more than a hundred
+miners. A committee of the proprietors besought our chemist to provide a
+method of preparing for such tremendous visitations; and he did it. He
+tells us that he first turned his attention particularly to the subject
+in 1815; but he must have been prepared for it by the researches of his
+early years. Still, there appeared little hope of finding an efficacious
+remedy. The resources of modern mechanical science had been fully
+applied in ventilation. The comparative lightness of fire-damp was well
+understood; every precaution was taken to preserve the communications
+open; and the currents of air were promoted or occasioned, not only by
+furnaces, but likewise by air-pumps and steam apparatus. We may here
+mention that, for giving light to the coal-miner or pitman, where the
+fire-damp was apprehended, the primitive contrivance was a steel-mill,
+the light of which was produced by contact of a flint with the edge of a
+wheel kept in rapid motion. A "safety-lamp" had already, in 1813, been
+constructed by Dr. Clanny, the principle of which was forcing in air
+through water by bellows; but the machine was ponderous and complicated,
+and required a boy to work it. M. Humboldt had previously, in 1796,
+constructed a lamp for mines upon the same principle as that of Dr.
+Clanny.</p>
+
+<p>Davy, having conceived that flame and explosion may be regulated and
+arrested, began a minute chemical examination of fire-damp. He found
+that carburetted-hydrogen gas, even when mixed with fourteen times its
+bulk of atmospheric air, was still explosive. He ascertained that
+explosions of inflammable gases were incapable of being passed through
+long, narrow metallic tubes; and that this principle of security was
+still obtained by diminishing their length and diameter at the same
+time, and likewise diminishing their length and increasing their number,
+so that a great number of small apertures would not pass explosion when
+their depth was equal to their diameter. This fact led to trials upon
+sieves of wire-gauze; he found that if a piece of wire-gauze was held
+over the flame of a lamp, or coal-gas, it prevented the flame from
+passing; and he ascertained that a flame confined in a cylinder of very
+fine wire-gauze did not explode even in a mixture of oxygen and
+hydrogen, but that the gases burned in it with great vivacity. These
+experiments served as the basis of the safety-lamp.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Humphry Davy presented his first communication respecting his
+discovery of the safety-lamp to the Royal Society in 1815. This was
+followed by a series of papers, crowned by that read on January 11,
+1816, when the principle of the safety-lamp was announced, and Sir
+Humphry presented to the society a model made by his own hands, which is
+to this day preserved in the collection of the Royal Society at
+Burlington House.</p>
+
+<p>There have been several modifications of the safety-lamp, and the merit
+of the discovery has been claimed by others, among whom was Mr. George
+Stephenson; but the question was set at rest in 1817 by an examination,
+attested by Sir Joseph Banks, P.R.S., Mr. Brande, Mr. Hatchett, and Dr.
+Wollaston, and awarding the independent merit to Davy.</p>
+
+<p>It should be explained that Stephenson's lamp was formed on the
+principle of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page280" name="page280"></a>(p. 280)</span> admitting the fire-damp by narrow tubes, and "in
+such small detached portions that it would be consumed by combustion."
+The two lamps were doubtless distinct inventions; though Davy, in all
+justice, appears to be entitled to precedence, not only in point of
+date, but as regards the long chain of inductive reasoning concerning
+the nature of flame by which his result was arrived at.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the Report by the Parliamentary Committee "cannot admit that
+the experiments (made with the lamp) have any tendency to detract from
+the character of Sir Humphry Davy, or to disparage the fair value placed
+by himself upon his invention. The improvements are probably those which
+longer life and additional facts would have induced him to contemplate
+as desirable, and of which, had he not been the inventor, he might have
+become the patron."</p>
+
+<p>"I value it," Davy used to say, with the kindliest exultation, "more
+than anything I ever did; it was the result of a great deal of
+investigation and labor; but if my directions be attended to, it will
+save the lives of thousands of poor men."</p>
+
+<p>The principle of the invention may be thus summed up: In the
+safety-lamp, the mixture of the fire-damp and atmospheric air within the
+cage of wire-gauze explodes upon coming in contact with the flame; but
+the combustion cannot pass through the wire-gauze; and being there
+imprisoned, cannot impart to the explosive atmosphere of the mine any of
+its force. This effect has been attributed to the cooling influence of
+the metal; but, since the wires may be brought to a degree of heat but
+little below redness without igniting the fire-damp, this does not
+appear to be the cause.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Playfair has elegantly characterized the safety-lamp of Davy
+as a present from philosophy to the arts, a discovery in no degree the
+effect of accident or chance, but the result of patient and enlightened
+research, and strongly exemplifying the great use of an immediate and
+constant appeal to experiment. After characterizing the invention as the
+<i>shutting-up in a net of the most slender texture</i> of a most violent and
+irresistible force, and a power that in its tremendous effects seems to
+emulate the lightning and the earthquake, Professor Playfair thus
+concludes: "When to this we add the beneficial consequences, and the
+saving of the lives of men, and consider that the effects are to remain
+as long as coal continues to be dug from the bowels of the earth, it may
+be fairly said that there is hardly in the whole compass of art or
+science a single invention of which one would rather wish to be the
+author.... This," says Professor Playfair, "is exactly such a case as we
+should choose to place before Bacon, were he to revisit the earth; in
+order to give him, in a small compass, an idea of the advancement which
+philosophy has made since the time when he had pointed out to her the
+route which she ought to pursue."</p>
+
+<p>Honors were showered upon Davy. He received from the Royal Society the
+Copley, Royal, and Rumford Medals, and several times delivered the
+Bakerian Lecture. He also received Napoleon's prize for the advancement
+of galvanic researches from the French Institute. The invention of the
+safety-lamp brought him the public gratitude of the united colliers of
+Whitehaven, of the coal proprietors of the north of England, of the
+grand jury of Durham, of the Chamber <span class="pagenum"><a id="page281" name="page281"></a>(p. 281)</span> of Commerce at Mons, of
+the coal-miners of Flanders, and, above all, of the coal-owners of the
+Wear and the Tyne, who presented him (it was his own choice) with a
+dinner-service of silver worth £2,500. On the same occasion, Alexander,
+the Emperor of all the Russias, sent him a vase, with a letter of
+commendation. In 1817, he was elected to the dignity of an associate of
+the Institute of France; next year, at the age of forty, he was created
+a baronet.</p>
+
+<p>Davy's discoveries form a remarkable epoch in the history of the Royal
+Society during the early part of this century; and from 1821 to 1829
+almost every volume of the <i>Transactions</i> contains a communication by
+him. He was president of the Royal Society from 1820 to 1827.</p>
+
+<p>Fond of travel, geology, and sport, Davy visited, for the purpose of
+mineralogy and angling, almost every county of England and Wales. He was
+provided with a portable laboratory, that he might experiment when he
+chose, as well as fish and shoot. In 1827, upon resigning the presidency
+of the Royal Society, he retired to the continent; in 1829, at Geneva,
+his palsy-stricken body returned to the dust. They buried him at Geneva,
+where a simple monument stands at the head of the hospitable grave.
+There is a tablet to his memory in Westminster Abbey; there is a
+monument at Penzance; and his widow founded a memorial chemical prize in
+the University of Geneva. His public services of plate, his imperial
+vases, his foreign prizes, his royal medals, shall be handed down with
+triumph to his collateral posterity as trophies won from the depths of
+nescience; but his work, designed by his own genius, executed by his own
+hand, tracery and all, and every single stone signalized by his own
+private mark, indelible, characteristic, and inimitable&mdash;his work is the
+only record of his name. How deeply are its foundations rooted in space,
+and how lasting its materials for time!<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>GENERAL SAN MARTIN<a id="footnotetag9" name="footnotetag9"></a><a href="#footnote9" title="Go to footnote 9"><span class="small">[9]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Hezekiah Butterworth</span><br>
+
+(1778-1850)</h3>
+
+<p class="poem50">
+<span class="add1em">"Seras lo que debes ser,</span><br>
+  Y sino, no seras nada."<br>
+<span class="add6em smcap">San Martin.</span></p>
+
+<p>San Martin, the ideal liberator of South America from the long and
+tyrannical rule of Spanish viceroys, was one of the most remarkable men
+of his own or of any age. From a moral point of view he stands in the
+first rank of the world's heroes. "He was not a man," said a student of
+South American history, "he was a mission." Cincinnatus, after serving
+the state, returned to the plough, and Washington to the retirement of
+Mt. Vernon; but San Martin for the peace of his country went <span class="pagenum"><a id="page282" name="page282"></a>(p. 282)</span>
+into voluntary exile. His country crowned him dead and made for his dead
+body a tomb of Peace, surrounded by the marble angels of the arts of
+human progress, more beautiful in its meaning than any tomb on the
+Appian Way, and one of the most wonderful memorials on earth.</p>
+
+<p>The Battle of Maipú, of which San Martin was the victor, completed the
+emancipation of South America, and made the achievements of Bolivar easy
+in the Northern Andes. Said the hero of Maipú&mdash;and what words of man
+under the circumstances ever equalled the declaration in moral
+sublimity!&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The presence of a fortunate general, however disinterested he may be,
+is dangerous to a newly founded state. I have achieved the independence
+of Peru: I have ceased to be a public man!" He died at Boulogne, France,
+in poverty, after nearly thirty years of exiled and fameless life. His
+career seems like that of some hero of fiction, such as the imagination
+of a Plato, a Bacon, or a Sir Thomas More might create for an Utopia. He
+is the one perfectly unselfish man in history, and his fame has grown
+steadily in Spanish America, since Argentina built a tomb-palace for his
+remains, and decreed for him one of the most splendid funerals ever
+known to the Western World.</p>
+
+<p>General Don Joachim de la Pezuela, the last Spanish ruler of Peru, was
+the forty-fourth viceroy from Pizarro. "The Indians," he said, "love the
+memory of the Incas&mdash;the country is ready to rise." The banner of
+Argentina was putting to flight the condors of the Andes, and the last
+viceroy saw in its advance the end of Spain in the New World.</p>
+
+<p>The Argentine hero who had created the army of the Andes for universal
+liberty was San Martin. He was born on February 25, 1778, at Yapeyu, in
+Misiones. His father was a South American officer under the last rule of
+the viceroys. The family removed to Spain in his boyhood, and he became
+for two years a pupil in the Seminary of Nobles, at Madrid. At the age
+of twelve he became a cadet, wearing a uniform of blue and white, which
+he made in manhood the colors of South American emancipation.</p>
+
+<p>He fought in the war against the Moors, and in the campaign against
+France, in 1793. In 1800 he took part in the so-called "War of the
+Oranges against Portugal."</p>
+
+<p>In the early part of the nineteenth century there began to be formed in
+Spain secret societies for the purpose of advancing the cause of liberty
+and human progress. One of these associations, called <i>Caballeros
+Racionales</i>, became very influential, and corresponded with the society
+of the Grand Reunion of America (<i>Gran Reunion Americana</i>) of London.
+This society was pledged "to recognize no government in America as
+legitimate unless it was elected by the free will of the people." San
+Martin joined this society. The London society was established by
+Miranda, the Spanish patriot, a friend of Bolivar, by whose inspirations
+San Martin became a disciple of liberty, and whose dreams he fulfilled
+long after the patriot was dead.</p>
+
+<p>San Martin won honors and a medal in the Spanish resistance to the
+victorious eagles of Napoleon. In that campaign he fought under a banner
+of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page283" name="page283"></a>(p. 283)</span> Sun, having this motto in Latin: "We bear this aloft
+dispersing the clouds." He made this banner the flag of the army of the
+Andes.</p>
+
+<p>In 1812, San Martin, as a disciple of the principles of the Spanish
+apostle of liberty, Miranda, returned to South America, and in March
+went to Buenos Ayres, and offered his sword to the Argentine patriots
+for the cause of independence. The country was in revolution against the
+Spanish rule. San Martin was not only an American, but a Creole; he was
+unselfish, truthful, the soul of honor, and of all men in the world the
+one that would seem best fitted to lead the cause of the South American
+patriots. He was destined to become "the greatest of the Creoles of the
+New World."</p>
+
+<p>Soon after the arrival of San Martin in Buenos Ayres he married Doña
+Remedios Esculada, and Mercedes, a daughter of this marriage, shared
+with him his voluntary exile after the conquest of Peru.</p>
+
+<p>Appointed at once to a high military position under the Argentine
+Government, he conceived the plan of creating an army of the Andes, of
+crossing the Cordillera, and of driving the Spaniards from Chile.</p>
+
+<p>Mendoza, with which Buenos Ayres is now connected by railroad, lies on
+an elevation under the snowy Cordilleras. San Martin made his military
+camp here. On January 17, 1817, he began his march up the Andes, one of
+the most perilous achievements of modern warfare. The summit of the
+Uspallata Pass, over which the army was to climb, is 12,500 feet above
+the level of the sea, or 4,000 feet higher than the Pass of St. Bernard.</p>
+
+<p>The 17th, on which the army set forth, was a high holiday in Mendoza.
+The plaza was gay with banners, and the streets with patriotic
+decorations. The ladies of the city presented an embroidered flag to San
+Martin. The general, above whose head gleamed the snowy heights of the
+Andes, ascended a platform in the plaza, and waved this flag over his
+head, and shouted:</p>
+
+<p>"Soldiers, behold the first flag of independence!"</p>
+
+<p>There arose a great shout of "Viva la Patria!"</p>
+
+<p>"Soldiers, swear to sustain it."</p>
+
+<p>"We swear," answered the army, as one man.</p>
+
+<p>Salvos of musketry and artillery followed. Mitre, in his "Life of San
+Martin," as presented to us in the condensed translation of Pilling,
+eloquently says that this flag rose "for the redemption of one-half of
+South America, passed the Cordilleras, waved in triumph along the
+Pacific coast, floated over the foundations of two new republics, aided
+in the liberation of another, and after sixty-four years served as a
+funeral pall to the body of the hero, who thus delivered it to the care
+of the immortal Army of the Andes."</p>
+
+<p>The mountains rose above the departing army, piercing the sky in the
+fading day. Up they climbed, putting to flight the condors. The men
+suffered greatly from the rarefaction of the air. Even many of the
+animals of the expedition perished. Out of 9,261 mules, only 4,300 ever
+reached Chile.</p>
+
+<p>"What spoils my sleep," said San Martin, on surveying the Andes at the
+outset of the expedition, "is not the strength of the enemy, but how to
+pass those <span class="pagenum"><a id="page284" name="page284"></a>(p. 284)</span> immense mountains." He might well say that, for
+before him gleamed peaks 21,000 feet high.</p>
+
+<p>The army, with all its sufferings, triumphantly crossed the lower passes
+of the Cordilleras, and entered Chile. This march decided the fate of
+South America.</p>
+
+<p>The army encamped upon the Sierra of Chacubuco, from the summit of which
+the whole of the magnificent country could be seen. Here rose the flag
+of liberation. The flower of the Spanish army, inferior in numbers, was
+near. On February 12th a battle was fought, and the royalists were
+defeated with a loss of 500 men killed, 600 taken prisoners, and all of
+their artillery.</p>
+
+<p>The way was now open to Santiago, the capital. The army entered the city
+amid the acclamations of the people. The Chilian assembly met and
+offered San Martin the office of governor, with dictatorial power. But
+San Martin was not fighting for power, or honor, but for the liberties
+of his countrymen, and he nobly declined the office.</p>
+
+<p>The guns of Buenos Ayres roared, and the city was turned into a festival
+when the news of the triumph of the army of the Andes reached the coast.
+The Argentine Government offered to bestow on San Martin its highest
+honors, but the latter declined them, lest his work should be retarded
+and his motives of life should be misconstrued. It awarded to his
+daughter a life pension, which he devoted to her education.</p>
+
+<p>Santiago offered to him 10,000 ounces of gold. He refused the splendid
+purse which he had so well won, but recommended that the money be used
+for the cause of popular education in the form of a public library.</p>
+
+<p>Chile and Argentina now formed an alliance in defence of their
+liberties.</p>
+
+<p>But the royal army was gathering force and unity. On March 31st, it
+numbered 5,500 men, and was prepared to make a final stand against the
+army of liberation.</p>
+
+<p>There is a river in Chile which divides the country, named the Maipó, or
+Maipú. On its banks the royal army encamped on the first days of April,
+1818. The patriot army was close at hand, and each army felt that the
+battle to follow would decide the fate of the movement for the
+independence of the South American empire.</p>
+
+<p>It is April 5, 1818. The royal army is ready for action, and the
+patriots occupy the heights of Loma Blanca, overlooking the plains of
+the Maipú.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not await a charge to-day," ordered San Martin; "<i>but charge</i> always
+within fifty paces!"</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of the action he said,</p>
+
+<p>"I take the sun to witness that the day is ours."</p>
+
+<p>Just then the sun, which had been clouded, shone from the heavens.</p>
+
+<p>The royal army was defeated. That night of May 5th covered their flight,
+and the War of Independence was won.</p>
+
+<p>San Martin began now to plan the liberation of Peru, and to create a
+navy for the purpose of commanding the ports of the golden mountains and
+rich plateaus of the incarial realms.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page285" name="page285"></a>(p. 285)</span> In August, 1820, he had gathered a patriot force of 4,500 men
+at Valparaiso, and was ready to embark for the conquest by sea. The army
+was composed of Argentines and Chilians. A former expedition had made
+the way of victory clear to the patriots. The fleet left Valparaiso
+August 21, 1820. The army landed in Peru and began operations near Lima.</p>
+
+<p>San Martin began his Chilian campaign by the liberation of the slaves,
+whom he afterward found trusty soldiers. He began the Peruvian war by
+issuing a most noble manifesto to his countrymen, in which he said:
+"Ever since I came back to my native land, the independence of Peru has
+been present in my mind."</p>
+
+<p>And again he grandly announced his future policy in nearly these words:
+"From the time that a government is established by the people of Peru,
+the army of the Andes will obey its orders."</p>
+
+<p>The army of liberation was as successful in Peru as in Chile. The empire
+of the viceroys crumbled and fell. Amid the roar of cannon, the shouts
+of the people, and strewing of flowers, the independence of Peru was
+proclaimed on July 20, 1821, in the great square of Lima. San Martin, as
+in Chile, was offered the supreme authority under the title of the
+Protector of Peru. He made use of the office merely for the pacification
+of the country. He convened the first Congress in Peru, and to the new
+government he addressed the words, or words like those, that we have
+quoted at the beginning of this article. He saw that Bolivar was the man
+to complete the liberation and bring about the unity of South America.
+The cause was all to him: he was nothing.</p>
+
+<p>To Bolivar he wrote: "My decision is irrevocable. I have convened the
+first Congress of Peru. The day of its installation I shall leave for
+Chile, convinced that my presence is the only obstacle that prevents you
+from coming to Peru."</p>
+
+<p>He sent to Bolivar a parting gift, saying, "Receive this memento from
+the first of your admirers, and with my desire that you have the glory
+of finishing the war for the independence of South America."</p>
+
+<p>The history of chivalry has no match for the character of San Martin.
+Bolivar united patriotism and vanity; San Martin's glory was
+self-abnegation. At a banquet where the two were present, Bolivar once
+offered the following toast: "To the two greatest men in South
+America&mdash;San Martin and <i>myself</i>."</p>
+
+<p>San Martin followed with his toast. "To the speedy end of the war; to
+the establishment of the republics, and to the health of the Liberator
+of Colombia!"</p>
+
+<p>The two toasts were photographs. Time is lifting the character of San
+Martin into its true place among glorious men. He was a man who fought
+for peace. His life fulfilled his own motto: "Thou shalt be what thou
+oughtest to be, or else thou shalt be nothing."</p>
+
+<p>On critical occasions, his magnanimous soul rose to the sublimity of
+this motto, and to the end of his life of glory and poverty he was
+always able to say, "I have been what I ought!"<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig006" name="sig006"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig006.jpg" width="300" height="42" alt="Author signature. Hezekiah Butterworth" title="">
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page286" name="page286"></a>(p. 286)</span> GEORGE STEPHENSON<a id="footnotetag10" name="footnotetag10"></a><a href="#footnote10" title="Go to footnote 10"><span class="small">[10]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Professor C. M. Woodward</span><br>
+
+(1781-1848)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img023" name="img023"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img023.jpg" width="200" height="223" alt="Steam engine." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Far in the north of England, near the Scottish border, by the shore of
+the German Ocean, is the county of brown and barren hills called
+Northumberland, and its principal city, Newcastle, famous for its coal.
+There is another Newcastle near the centre of England, so this one is
+often distinguished by the name "Newcastle-on-Tyne"&mdash;Tyne being the
+blackest and dirtiest of all rivers.</p>
+
+<p>A few miles from Newcastle, up the Tyne, is the little mining village of
+Wylam, where, a hundred years ago, lived Robert Stephenson and his wife
+Mabel. There was no style about Wylam, and few evidences of wealth or
+culture. The houses straggled about near the outlets of the coal-mines,
+and everything was as uninviting as it well could be. Stephenson's
+house, or rather "shanty," had but one room, and that had an earthen
+floor. Robert and Mabel were about as ill-furnished as their house; for
+neither could read, they had not a book nor a print, and neither knew
+much more of the world than could be seen, as they stood on the bank of
+the Tyne and looked about on the neighboring hills and down toward
+Newcastle. In 1892 I rode down the valley of the Tyne, past Wylam,
+through Newcastle, and over the high bridge that our fireman's grandson,
+Robert, built in later days. Few valleys are less attractive, and few
+seem less likely to be the birthplace of epoch-making men.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Stephenson, the father of our hero, was a fireman, earning two
+shillings a day. He was sober and industrious, but as would be expected,
+he never "got on." He was a good story-teller, and transmitted to his
+children healthy bodies and clear heads. George was the second of six
+children, and he was born June 9, 1781, during our war for independence.
+His boyhood was uneventful enough. When the weather was cold he was
+cooped up in their narrow home; he was out of doors whenever the weather
+would permit. He played in the street, ran errands, carried his father's
+dinner, and herded cows, as soon as he was big enough, for four cents
+per day. At fourteen he was assistant-fireman, earning twenty-five cents
+a day, and at seventeen he was "plugman." He was thus in contact with
+much that had been achieved in the way of building engines and
+transporting materials on cars. But I must describe the engines then in
+use, and explain what it was to be a "plugman."</p>
+
+<p>The coal-mines were so deep that, in spite of the valleys, they could be
+drained only by pumps, and it was often more difficult to keep the water
+out <span class="pagenum"><a id="page287" name="page287"></a>(p. 287)</span> than it was to lift the coal out. The steam-engine was
+then in a very incomplete condition, and both pumping-and
+lifting-engines were crude and clumsy affairs. To be sure Watt, the
+mathematical instrument-maker, had invented the double-acting
+steam-engine, but few had been manufactured, and those in common use
+were "atmospheric" engines, known as "Newcomen's" engines. A
+pumping-engine had a long, vertical cylinder, with arrangements for
+admitting steam at the top. The weight of the piston, piston-rod, and
+pump-rod, which ran down a shaft to the lowest point in the mine, being
+balanced by a counter-weight on a sort of well-sweep, the steam,
+admitted by hand, forced the piston to the bottom of the cylinder. The
+steam was then shut off, and a spray of water was turned on within the
+cylinder. This water condensed the steam and reduced the pressure within
+to almost nothing, so that the air pressure on the exterior face of the
+piston (which amounted to over a ton for every square foot of surface)
+drove the piston to the top of the cylinder, and lifted the full length
+of the stroke a large quantity of water.</p>
+
+<p>It is evident that the office of engineer was not an easy one. It was
+all he could do to take care of the steam end of the pump; another man
+was needed to look after the lower end, where the pump-valve worked in
+another vertical cylinder. The water entered this cylinder through holes
+in the sides, some higher, some lower, according to the stage of water
+in the mine. The pumps did not run continuously, but they lowered the
+water to the bottom as often as it was necessary. As the level of the
+water in the mine fell, it was necessary to plug the upper holes in the
+pump cylinder; the man who watched the lower end and plugged those holes
+was known as the "plugman." It is difficult to conceive of a less
+inspiring occupation than that to which George Stephenson was promoted
+at the age of seventeen. Alone in the dark, chilled by the damp air, and
+wet by the black water, he was forced, by lack of other occupation, to
+note every mechanical detail of the machinery, and to study methods of
+improving it.</p>
+
+<p>At the age of eighteen he heard of some wonderful engines made by Watt &amp;
+Boulton, at their new factory, and was told that the engines were fully
+described and illustrated in books. So he determined to learn to read.
+He was encouraged in this resolve by stories that a French soldier, by
+the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, was sweeping everything before him on
+the continent of Europe, and that he was planning the subjugation of
+Great Britain. Information about Napoleon could be gained from printed
+newspapers if one could only read.</p>
+
+<p>But where should he learn? There was no public school in Wylam; none of
+our hero's companions went to school; none of the people he associated
+with could read or write. However, he found a teacher in a young man by
+the name of Robert Cowens, of whom he took three lessons per week in the
+evening. He earned money for books and instruction by mending shoes and
+repairing clocks. He was handy with tools, and quick at seeing the
+relations of things. As soon as he could read and write he learned to
+cipher, taking a slateful of "sums," set by his teacher, to his work in
+the morning, to be "done" during <span class="pagenum"><a id="page288" name="page288"></a>(p. 288)</span> odd moments while watching
+his pump or engine, for he was soon advanced to the care of the steam
+end of the machine.</p>
+
+<p>While young Stephenson, now grown a man, is thus busy with his primer,
+his copy-book, and "four rules," let us reflect upon the uncanny
+circumstances of his early life. He had no luxuries, few real comforts.
+The people around him lived half the time underground in mines that were
+dark, damp, and dangerous&mdash;in constant war with water and a poisonous,
+explosive, natural gas, known as "fire-damp." Above ground there was
+little that was attractive or educative. The young men had their games,
+at which George was fairly successful, for he was strong and active. The
+ale-house stood near by, and it absorbed most of the spare time and
+scant earnings of the miners; but it is said that young Stephenson
+avoided the saloon, and was never known to leave his work for a drink of
+liquor. On off days he took his engine to pieces, examined its parts and
+the functions of each, and remedied small defects and devised
+improvements. Naturally clear-headed and ingenious, every circumstance
+tended to develop his executive powers. He soon was known in the Tyne
+valley as a good engine-doctor.</p>
+
+<p>An incident, when he was about twenty years of age, did much to shape
+his career. He heard that a neighboring mine had been flooded on account
+of the inability of the engine to pump fast enough. No engineer could
+make the engine efficient. One Sunday he went down and looked at it.
+After a thorough examination he said he could make it work in a week's
+time if he could have authority to make changes as he saw fit. Authority
+was given him. In four days the engine was repaired and set to work. In
+spite of jeers from old engine-men, who were jealous of a mere boy, the
+pump worked well and the mine was soon dry. George's reputation was
+made, and he soon received appointment as engineer at a large mine at
+Killingworth, an important place near by.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Stephenson added exact instrumental drawing to his three R's.
+He found, as every artisan finds, that exact drawing is necessary not
+only to the study of existing mechanical devices, but particularly to
+the successful design of new parts. The successful inventor generally
+invents at his drawing-board.</p>
+
+<p>When twenty-one years of age Stephenson married Fanny Henderson, a
+respectable country girl living at Ballast Hill. He brought the bride
+home behind him on a pillion, a wedding journey of fifteen miles. Robert
+Stephenson, who became his father's partner, and one of the first of
+England's civil engineers, was born in 1803. In 1812, when Stephenson
+was thirty-one years old, he was made engine-wright of a large colliery
+at Killingworth, at a salary of $500. The position was one of profit and
+fine opportunity. All the engines and machinery were in his hands, and
+all the repair-and construction-shops were available for such new
+designs as he saw fit to make. He at once set about making his first
+locomotive.</p>
+
+<p>Locomotives and railroads of certain sorts and fashions were already in
+existence, but they were rough and clumsy affairs.</p>
+
+<p>The rails were at first angle-irons, then flat bars of wrought iron,
+then cast-iron bars. In 1800 Benjamin Outram used stones for sleepers,
+and improved <span class="pagenum"><a id="page289" name="page289"></a>(p. 289)</span> rails&mdash;hence "tramways." Over these tramways cars
+were drawn by horses, or by ropes from stationary engines. Murduck made
+a locomotive in 1784, and by 1812 several types of engines were used for
+hauling coal-cars. Stephenson saw one of Blenkinsop's engines.
+Gear-wheels connected the crank-shaft with the axles, and the
+driving-wheels were geared with the track, while of course, the
+coal-cars ran on different rails.</p>
+
+<p>This Blenkinsop's engine was a fearful machine. All the teeth rattled,
+and as there were no springs and the road was very uneven, the shocks
+were heavy and frequent, even though its speed was only four miles an
+hour.</p>
+
+<p>Stephenson's first engine, "My Lord," in honor of his patron, Lord
+Ravensworth, was finished in 1814. Some experiments on the friction of
+smooth wheels on iron rails led him to omit the teeth on the drivers,
+though everyone laughed at him, declaring that the engine would not run
+an "up grade," much less draw a load. His faith, however, resisted all
+arguments; it was based on experiments and careful calculations.
+Stephenson <i>knew</i> that his engine would run up hill and draw a load, and
+it did so triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>But the engine lacked steam. The boiler was small, and the fire was
+applied only on the exterior of the shell, and the draft was very poor,
+for the chimney was of necessity short. Only very low steam-pressure was
+possible, and little or no expansion was practicable. Consequently the
+exhaust was noisy and forcible. Stephenson turned it into the chimney
+and found that it increased the draft considerably; he at once thought
+that a steady jet of steam could be so directed as to make a strong
+draft even when the engine was not in motion. Thus the "blast" was
+invented, which about doubled the capacity of the machine.</p>
+
+<p>Stephenson's second locomotive, built in 1815, had no noisy gears, but
+instead, chain-belts to the driving-axles. It had, however, no springs,
+and the shocks were so great that only a low speed was possible. In 1816
+he built locomotives with springs, some of which were in use for hauling
+coals for forty years.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Robert was growing into a manly, useful lad. Knowing something
+of the value of education, both of the head and of the hand, his father
+determined that Robert should have the best of both. He was sent to
+Edinburgh for scientific culture, and when at home his father taught him
+drawing, mechanical processes, and the theory of machines as far as he
+was able&mdash;and his ability was considerable, for George Stephenson was
+more of a student than many whose early advantages were far better than
+his. The broad dual training given Robert appears to have been fully
+successful. Even before he became a man he was of great value to his
+father. Together they worked out plans for modifying and improving the
+locomotive and the road it was to run upon. He could soon draw and
+calculate better than his father, but he never excelled him in the
+solution of practical problems which depended upon a knowledge of
+materials and the simple laws of physics and mechanics.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far all railroads had been short, leading from mines to piers for
+shipping by water. The success of Stephenson's locomotive, the best
+working locomotive <span class="pagenum"><a id="page290" name="page290"></a>(p. 290)</span> ever built at that time, led the
+proprietors of the Hetton Colliery, a few miles south of the Tyne
+valley, to propose a road, some eight miles long, over high hills and on
+steep grades. Stephenson planned and superintended the construction of
+the road as their engineer. There were several steep inclines where
+loaded cars going down drew empty cars up. There were two heavy
+stationary engines drawing cars by a rope, and five of Stephenson's
+locomotives for the easy grades. Each locomotive drew seventeen wagons,
+weighing about sixty-four tons, at the rate of four miles per hour. This
+was the best done as yet, and was considered a great success. It
+thoroughly established the reputation of George Stephenson as an
+engineer. This road was opened in 1822.</p>
+
+<p>Before the Hetton Railway was opened Stephenson was busy on a larger
+work. Parliament had given a franchise for a railway in Durham County,
+some twenty miles long, through Darlington to Stockton. The function of
+the road was to carry coal to a shipping pier, and it was not at all
+settled that horses would not be used to draw the cars. While not much
+was known about railways, and very little about locomotives, there was a
+growing conviction that there was great economy in the use of tramways
+and the steam-engine, and the prospect brightened for building the road.</p>
+
+<p>The charming biographer, Smiles, tells how George Stephenson called on
+Mr. Edward Pease, the president of the proposed railway, and offered his
+services in building and equipping the road. Mr. Pease was at once
+pleased with the man. "There was," said he later, "such an honest,
+sensible look about him, and he seemed so modest and unpretending. He
+spoke in the strong Northumbrian dialect, and described himself as 'only
+the engine-wright at Killingworth.'"</p>
+
+<p>Stephenson urged at once that the road be built for locomotives. Mr.
+Pease had never seen a locomotive at work, and had taken it for granted
+that horses would be used; but he went up to Killingworth and rode on
+the "Blucher" with Stephenson, while it hauled a train of loaded cars.
+Seeing was believing, and Mr. Pease was in favor of both Stephenson and
+his locomotive.</p>
+
+<p>So Stephenson was made chief engineer. He and his son Robert surveyed
+the line, changed the location, avoiding certain territory where people
+were hostile to a road of any sort, and built new and improved
+locomotives for the line. What we now call good tools were not to be
+had, and skilled workmen were not easy to find, but Stephenson made a
+great advance in the quality of the workmanship.</p>
+
+<p>The amended Act of Parliament gave the Stockton and Darlington line the
+right to carry passengers in cars drawn by locomotives. This was the
+first instance of such a grant. Stephenson met Mr. Pease in 1821; the
+road was opened to the public in 1825. People came in crowds to see the
+locomotives and to ride on the <i>first public railway</i>. There had been
+bitter opposition to the road and a vast amount of incredulity as to the
+ability of the locomotives to do practical work.</p>
+
+<p>Imagine the excitement of the first ride. The train consisted of 6 cars
+loaded with coal and other freight; then a short passenger coach filled
+with directors <span class="pagenum"><a id="page291" name="page291"></a>(p. 291)</span> and friends; then 21 open cars or wagons fitted
+for excursionists; lastly came 6 more cars loaded with coal&mdash;making 38
+cars in all!</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stephenson was proud to be on the locomotive and to run it himself.
+It seemed to spectators incredible that the locomotive could start such
+a load, but it did start it, and it drew it 8-3/4 miles in 65 minutes,
+the speed at times reaching 12 miles per hour! More cars were added at
+Darlington, and then the train drew on to Stockton, all cars being
+crowded with passengers.</p>
+
+<p>The success was complete, and all doubts seemed to vanish. From that day
+the traffic over the road continued without interruption. To the
+surprise of all, the passenger business became a very important item,
+and better cars were quickly in demand.</p>
+
+<p>The road is in use to-day, and I had the pleasure last year of riding
+over a part of it. Of course it now looks in all respects like a modern
+English road, but I was deeply moved by the thought that it was there
+that George Stephenson built his first public railway and achieved his
+first public triumph.</p>
+
+<p>Stephenson was not unmindful of the importance of that step. He said, on
+that occasion, to some young men, "Now, lads, I will tell you that I
+think you will live to see the day (though I may not live so long), when
+railways will come to supersede almost all other methods of
+conveyance&mdash;when mail coaches will go by railway. The time is coming
+when it will be cheaper for a working-man to ride than to go on foot."
+He lived to see all that himself, and far more.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult for us to appreciate the popular surprise and delight at
+that first railway excursion. We are so accustomed to splendid engines,
+luxurious cars, and high speed, that we think nothing of them; but when
+all were new&mdash;when coaches and carts on highways were the sole reliance
+for passengers and freight&mdash;it was astonishing indeed to see a
+"travelling engine," in charge of two men, draw a train of forty cars
+and six hundred people!</p>
+
+<p>Many men would have been satisfied with the result, but Stephenson was
+not. He said there was no limit to the speed but the strength of the
+machinery and the supply of steam. He saw there was no limit to the load
+but the strength and weight of the locomotive, and no limit to the
+weight but the strength of the rails and the character of the road-bed;
+thus he early saw how progress was to be made.</p>
+
+<p>But Stephenson's greatest triumph was yet to come. The Darlington road
+was chiefly for coals, between small towns in a rough northern county.
+The vast majority of English people heard nothing, and knew nothing
+about it. Consequently when it was proposed to connect the great
+commercial city of Liverpool with the great manufacturing city of
+Manchester, forty miles away, by a railway, it was taken for granted
+that the cars were to be drawn by horses. Nevertheless a tram-road was
+opposed, first, by the Duke of Bridgewater, who had a canal between the
+two cities; and, secondly, by those who owned the coaches and the inns.
+Though proposed in 1821, the opposition was so great that it was laid
+over for several years. In 1824 a committee of interested parties went
+to Darlington and Killingworth to see Stephenson's road and locomotives.
+The Darlington <span class="pagenum"><a id="page292" name="page292"></a>(p. 292)</span> line was not yet in operation, but the old
+locomotives were at work at Killingworth. The committee decided that
+they must have a double track for cars, whatever might be the motive
+power.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly Stephenson was invited to make surveys and estimates, as he
+was said to be a man of great energy and the only man in England with
+the necessary experience.</p>
+
+<p>The surveys were made in 1825 with the greatest difficulty, on account
+of the opposition of landowners. The surveyors were ordered off the
+grounds, threatened with arrest and violence. Stephenson testified
+before a Parliamentary Committee that the duke's manager threatened to
+have him thrown into the mill-pond if he trespassed. Stephenson kept on
+as good terms as he could with the hostiles, and surveyed their grounds
+by stealth.</p>
+
+<p>The chief points of difficulty were a tunnel at Liverpool, and a vast
+and treacherous morass known as "Chat Moss."</p>
+
+<p>Early in 1825, before the Darlington road was opened, Parliament was
+considering the railway bill and Stephenson was called before the
+committee as a most important witness. All the opposition was out in
+force and every means was used to ridicule the undertaking and defeat
+the bill.</p>
+
+<p>The spectacle presented by plain, blunt, unlettered George Stephenson
+before the lawyers and members of the House of Commons was strange and
+interesting, and no wonder it has become historical.</p>
+
+<p>In the cross-examination, every effort was made to confuse and discredit
+the witness, but he bore himself remarkably well. He had built or
+superintended half a dozen short railways, and had constructed sixteen
+locomotives, and he could speak on the details of his plans with
+certainty and confidence. Two things embarrassed him; the consciousness
+of awkwardness of manner and speech among men some of whom were inclined
+to sneer at his northern dialect and lack of polish; secondly, the
+necessity of restraining himself in stating what his locomotives could
+do. He fully believed they could draw long trains at the speed of twenty
+miles, but he was told by the friends of the bill that if he made that
+claim before the committee, he would be called a madman, and the bill
+would be killed; accordingly he promised to hold himself down to ten
+miles per hour.</p>
+
+<p>The evidence brought in against the bill was remarkable, and to-day it
+sounds strange enough. It was urged that the rails would bend under the
+locomotive at high speed; that the engine would run off the track on
+curves; that if the engine got round the curves the cars would go off;
+that the driving-wheels would "spin," if they went fast, without drawing
+the train; that the noise and sight of the train would frighten horses
+and cattle; that hens would not lay and cows would cease to give milk
+along by the road; that the smoke would poison the air and blast the
+fields and parks; that the coach lines would be ruined, horses would no
+longer be of value, and coach-makers, harness-makers, inn-keepers and
+others along the great roads would have nothing to do, etc., etc. In the
+face of ignorance, ridicule, contempt, and self-interest, Stephenson
+firmly maintained the safety of a good road, the stability of his
+engines and cars, the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page293" name="page293"></a>(p. 293)</span> harmlessness of smoke and noise, and the
+facility with which animals became indifferent to trains. He said that
+at Killingworth cattle would not stop feeding as the trains went by. As
+to the effect of speed, he boldly asserted that at twelve miles per hour
+the load on a rail would be no more than at six, and in support of his
+position he appealed to skaters who go swiftly over thin ice. As to the
+"spinning" of the wheels, he was positive that no such thing ever had
+happened or could happen. The enemies of the bill caught at his
+suggestion of twelve miles per hour, and so pressed and led him on that
+he declared his honest conviction that his trains could run on such a
+road as he could make twelve miles per hour. This rashness alarmed his
+friends, and they tried in vain to smooth it over by declaring such
+speed to be purely "hypothetical."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of all that could be said in its favor, in spite of the
+pressing need of better transportation for coal, cotton, merchandise,
+and passengers, the bill failed. Such was the blindness, and ignorance,
+and prejudice of the House of Commons! Think of calling George
+Stephenson "an ignoramus, a fool, a maniac," in Parliament, yet such was
+done.</p>
+
+<p>The friends of the bill were not discouraged; they determined to apply
+again the next year; but poor Stephenson was discredited, Mr. George
+Rennie, the great bridge engineer, was employed to make a new survey,
+and Mr. Stephenson was not called before the committee. Meanwhile, the
+Darlington line was opened, and reports of its success had reached
+London. It seemed to be admitted that the <i>road</i> was a good thing, but
+there was great scepticism in regard to the locomotive. However, the
+bill passed in the spring of 1826, and the directors were not long in
+deciding that the only competent man to build the road was George
+Stephenson, and he was elected principal engineer at a salary of $5,000.</p>
+
+<p>The building of the road seemed to be, and was at the time, a tremendous
+undertaking. Bridges, viaducts, tunnels, and above all, Chat Moss, a
+yielding bog four miles across and of unknown depth, all taxed the
+engineer and the company to the utmost. The road was finished in 1830.
+With the exception of bridges and rails it was very much as it exists
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p>For a long time the directors were undecided as to the method of
+propelling the cars. Nearly every engineer except Stephenson was opposed
+to the locomotive, or travelling engine.</p>
+
+<p>It seems incredible that Telford and the two Rennies, road-makers and
+bridge-builders, lacked faith in the locomotive, and preferred
+stationary engines and long cables. Their main objection to the
+locomotive appears to have been based on the fact that the steam
+capacity was small, and that it was impracticable to build a locomotive
+large enough to furnish all the steam that was needed. Stephenson
+insisted that already his locomotives were better than stationary
+engines, and yet they could be greatly improved. He said, "Offer a
+generous prize for the best locomotive, and inventors and builders will
+greatly improve their machines, and we will have a far better locomotive
+than now." He said he felt sure he could make a much better one himself.
+By that time Stephenson <span class="pagenum"><a id="page294" name="page294"></a>(p. 294)</span> was part owner in new locomotive works
+at Newcastle, and Robert was in general charge there.</p>
+
+<p>The puzzled directors decided to adopt Stephenson's suggestion, and
+offered $2,500 as a prize for the best locomotive. The specifications
+required:</p>
+
+<p>1. The engine (without tender) must not weigh more than six tons.</p>
+
+<p>2. The ordinary steam pressure must not exceed 50 pounds above that of
+the atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>3. It must be well supplied with safety-valves and pressure-gauges.</p>
+
+<p>4. It must not exceed fifteen feet in height.</p>
+
+<p>5. It must rest on springs.</p>
+
+<p>6. It must be able (if weighing six tons) to draw twenty tons
+continuously ten miles per hour.</p>
+
+<p>7. It must not cost more than $2,750.</p>
+
+<p>8. The boiler must stand a pressure, when tested, of 150 pounds per
+square inch.</p>
+
+<p>9. It must be ready for trial October 1, 1829.</p>
+
+<p>The publication of these conditions and the offer of the prize excited
+great interest, and caused no small amount of comment.<a id="footnotetag11" name="footnotetag11"></a><a href="#footnote11" title="Go to footnote 11"><span class="small">[11]</span></a> The
+Stephensons at once began the construction of "The Rocket," without
+doubt the most famous locomotive ever built. The improved feature it was
+to have was increased heating surface, so that without increased weight
+it could generate more steam. This was effected by putting fire-tubes
+through the water in the boiler. Boiler-tubes had already been used by
+different people, and some of Stephenson's locomotives which he had sent
+to France had been fitted with tubes. At the suggestion of Mr. James
+Booth, Stephenson decided to use a large number of tubes. Modern boilers
+have smaller tubes and more of them, but "The Rocket" was the first to
+typify the modern multitubular boiler. In other respects "The Rocket"
+was like Stephenson's other locomotives built ten or twelve years
+earlier.</p>
+
+<p>A brief description of "The Rocket" will not be out of place: The boiler
+was 6 feet long, 3 feet 4 inches in diameter, and was furnished with 25
+copper tubes 3 inches in diameter. The fire-box was at the rear end of
+the boiler, 2 feet wide and 3 feet high, surrounded by water. The
+cylinders were high on the sides, pointing down to the forward wheels,
+which were the only drivers. Stephenson had used coupling rods between
+two sets of "drivers," but "The Rocket" was made for speed chiefly. Its
+weight when furnished with water was only <i>four and a half tons</i>! On
+trial at Killingworth "The Rocket" worked finely and its capacity for
+steam was marvellous. It was sent by wagon to Carlisle and by boat to
+Liverpool.</p>
+
+<p>On the day set for the trial there were four engines on hand: 1. The
+"Novelty," built by young Ericsson, who afterward in New York built the
+famous <span class="pagenum"><a id="page295" name="page295"></a>(p. 295)</span> "Monitor." 2. The "Sanspareil," by Timothy Hackworth.
+3. The "Perseverance," by a Mr. Burstall. 4. "The Rocket," by Stephenson
+and Booth.</p>
+
+<p>The programme of test fixed by the judges was to run over a level piece
+of the road at Rainhill, two miles long, forty times during a day, at a
+rate not less than ten miles per hour. The train was to weigh three and
+one-third times as much as the locomotive. Each engine was to have a day
+for trial.</p>
+
+<p>The "Perseverance" proved slow; its best speed was not more than six
+miles per hour; so it was quickly withdrawn.</p>
+
+<p>The "Sanspareil" was made by one of Stephenson's own foremen, and
+differed little from the Killingworth style of locomotive. It was rather
+over weight, but it ran at times as fast as fourteen miles per hour. Its
+machinery was defective, however, and it was ruled out by the judges.</p>
+
+<p>The "Novelty" ran at times in good style, but its bellows, for making a
+fire-blast, were defective and repeatedly gave out, causing delay. It
+failed to make the required speed with a full load; by itself it is said
+to have run at the rate of twenty-eight miles per hour. Ericsson claimed
+that he had not had time to properly construct his locomotive, and the
+claim was probably just. As it was, the time was extended six days.</p>
+
+<p>The day assigned for "The Rocket" was the third day, but when on the
+second day all other engines failed, it was brought out to entertain the
+spectators. Attaching it to a coach full of passengers, Stephenson ran
+over the line at a rate reaching <i>thirty miles per hour</i>, to the
+amazement of all.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning "The Rocket" was subjected to the regular test. Its
+assigned load was thirteen and a half tons which it drew back and forth
+over the two-mile track the full stent of forty times, making a spurt at
+times as high as twenty-nine miles, about three times what had been
+declared possible by the judges! Finally, to show how fast the engine
+could go and still keep the track, Mr. Stephenson ran it alone at the
+astonishing rate of thirty-five miles per hour.</p>
+
+<p>Thus did "The Rocket" surpass all records and all expectations. The
+enthusiasm of every one was unbounded. All doubts were removed and
+Stephenson's opponents in the company became his ardent friends. His
+judgment seemed infallible, and his word was law.</p>
+
+<p>This victory at Rainhill completed the triumph of the Liverpool and
+Manchester Railway. The road was opened the following year, 1830, with
+most imposing ceremonies. Members of Parliament, lords and ladies, and
+even the great Duke of Wellington, honored the occasion by their
+presence, and rode on the excursion trains.</p>
+
+<p>The story of George Stephenson's great work is told. His railroad and
+his locomotive had come together, and to stay. All opposition was
+crushed, and no sooner was one road in successful operation than
+another, sometimes several, were on foot. George and Robert Stephenson
+were in demand everywhere and their locomotive works were full of
+orders. In twenty years England had nearly ten thousand miles of
+railways.</p>
+
+<p>The spectacle of these two men, father and son, working together as
+equals <span class="pagenum"><a id="page296" name="page296"></a>(p. 296)</span> was one often admired. Both became wealthy and full of
+honor. Titled men were proud to pay their respects to George Stephenson,
+and when he died, in 1848, at the age of sixty-seven, the whole nation
+rose up to do him honor.</p>
+
+<p>Though probably Stephenson had never heard of Emerson, Emerson had heard
+of Stephenson, and he called upon him on his visit to England. Afterward
+Emerson said that "it was worth crossing the Atlantic to have seen
+Stephenson alone; he had such native force of character and vigor of
+intellect."</p>
+
+<p>What a contrast that meeting offers! There face to face stood two men,
+two great philosophers, both of whom have broadly and deeply influenced
+mankind&mdash;one by deeds, the other by words. One wielded the pen, giving
+us noble, beautiful and inspiring thoughts, profoundly analyzing life
+and character; the other wielded those cunning tools with which man
+subdues nature and harnesses its forces to do his will. He wrote not for
+the pages of a book, but on lines of steel with a stylus that conquered
+time and space, bringing distant cities into companionship. I look up to
+each with an equal reverence. Each achieved the conquest of mind over
+matter, and each exhibited the exceeding manliness of a noble life and
+character.</p>
+
+<p>There is no space with which to speak of Stephenson's safety-lamp, nor
+of the influence his life and character have had on the brain and brawn
+of working England. If my reader is interested to know him more and
+better, let him consult the nearest library.</p>
+
+<p>One word about "The Rocket" and this brief sketch is done. For some
+years "The Rocket" did service on the Liverpool and Manchester road, but
+it soon proved too light for the heavy traffic, and was sold to a coal
+company in the North, where for years it faithfully hauled coal-cars
+from the mines. But even there it was superseded, and in contempt
+consigned to the back-yard. It was still fleet, but not strong. In that
+dreary back-yard among useless lumber, the once peerless "Rocket" spent
+a season or two in rain and snow and sunny weather, when George
+Stephenson bought it back and put it in his cabinet at the Newcastle
+works. After Stephenson's death the precious relic was placed in the
+British Museum in London.</p>
+
+<p>"The Rocket" itself was exhibited a few years ago at the Railway
+Exposition in Chicago, and an exact copy of it was shown at the recent
+World's Fair.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig007" name="sig007"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig007.jpg" width="300" height="57" alt="Author signature. C. M. Woodward." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page297" name="page297"></a>(p. 297)</span> SAMUEL F. B. MORSE<br>
+
+(1791-1872)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img024" name="img024"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img024.jpg" width="200" height="276" alt="Samuel F. B. Morse." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Samuel Finley Breese Morse, artist and inventor, was born at the foot of
+Breed's Hill, Charlestown, Mass., on April 27, 1791. His father was the
+Rev. Jedediah Morse, D.D., the author of Morse's "Geography." At the age
+of fourteen Samuel Morse entered Yale College; under the instruction of
+Professors Day and Silliman he received the first impulse toward those
+electrical studies with which his name is mainly identified.</p>
+
+<p>In 1811 Morse, whose tastes during his early years led him more strongly
+toward art than toward science, became the pupil of Washington Allston,
+then the greatest of American artists, and accompanied his master to
+England, where he remained four years. His success at this period was
+considerable; but on his return to America, in 1815, he failed to obtain
+commissions for historical paintings, and after working on portraits for
+two years at Charleston, S.C., he removed first to Washington and
+afterward to Albany, finally settling in New York. In 1825 he laid the
+foundations of the National Academy of Design, and was elected its first
+president, an office which he filled until 1845. The year 1827 marks the
+revival of Morse's interest in electricity. It was at this time that he
+learned from Professor J. F. Dana, of Columbia College, the elementary
+facts of electro-magnetism. As yet, however, he was devoted to his art,
+and in 1829 he again went to Europe to study the old masters.</p>
+
+<p>The year of his return, 1832, may be said to close the period of his
+artistic, and to open that of his scientific, life. On board the
+packet-ship Sully, which sailed from Havre, October 1, 1832, while
+discussing one day with his fellow-passengers the properties of the
+electro-magnet, he was led to remark: "If the presence of electricity
+can be made visible in any part of the circuit, I see no reason why
+intelligence may not be transmitted by electricity."</p>
+
+<p>It was not a novel proposition, but the process of formulating it
+started in his mind a train of new and momentous ideas. The current of
+electricity, he knew, would pass instantaneously any distance along a
+wire; and if it were interrupted a spark would appear. It now occurred
+to him that the spark might represent a part of speech, either a letter
+or a number; the absence of the spark, another part; and the duration of
+its absence, or of the spark itself, a third; so that an alphabet might
+be easily formed, and words indicated. In a few days he had completed
+rough drafts of the necessary apparatus, which he displayed to his
+fellow-passengers. Five years later, the captain of the ship identified
+under oath <span class="pagenum"><a id="page298" name="page298"></a>(p. 298)</span> Morse's completed instrument with that which Morse
+had explained on board the Sully, in 1832.</p>
+
+<p>During the twelve years that followed Morse was engaged in a painful
+struggle to perfect his invention and secure for it a proper
+presentation to the public. The refusal of the Government to commission
+him to paint one of the great historical pictures in the rotunda of the
+Capitol, seemed to destroy all his old artistic ambition. In poverty he
+pursued his new enterprise, making his own models, moulds, and castings,
+denying himself the common necessaries of life, and encountering
+embarrassments and delays of the most disheartening kind. It was not
+until 1836 that he completed any apparatus that would work, his original
+idea having been supplemented by his discovery, in 1835, of the "relay,"
+by means of which the electric current might be reinforced or renewed
+where it became weak through distance from its source. Finally, on
+September 2, 1837, the instrument was exhibited to a few friends at his
+room in the University building, New York, where a circuit of 1,700 feet
+of copper wire had been set up, with such satisfactory results as to
+awaken the practical interest of the Messrs. Vail, iron and brass
+workers in New Jersey, who thenceforth became associated with Morse in
+his undertaking.</p>
+
+<p>Morse's petition for a patent was dated September 28, 1837, and was soon
+followed by a petition to Congress for an appropriation to defray the
+expense of subjecting the telegraph to actual experiment over a length
+sufficient to establish its feasibility and demonstrate its value. The
+Committee on Commerce, to whom the petition was referred, reported
+favorably. Congress, however, adjourned without making the
+appropriation, and meanwhile Morse sailed for Europe to take out patents
+there. The trip was not a success. In England his application was
+refused, on the alleged ground that his invention had been already
+published; and while he obtained a patent in France, it was subsequently
+appropriated by the French Government without compensation to himself.
+His negotiations also with Russia proved futile, and after a year's
+absence he returned to New York.</p>
+
+<p>On February 23, 1843, Congress passed the long-delayed appropriation of
+$30,000; and steps were at once taken to construct a telegraph from
+Baltimore to Washington. On May 24, 1844, it was used for the first
+time, Mr. Morse himself sending over the wires the first and
+ever-to-be-remembered message, "What hath God wrought."</p>
+
+<a id="img025" name="img025"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img025.jpg" width="400" height="597" alt="" title="">
+<p>Samuel F. B. Morse, Inventor of the Telegraph.</p></div>
+
+<p>Morse's parents were already secured to him and his associates, and
+companies were soon formed for the erection of telegraph lines all over
+the United States. In the year 1847 he was compelled to defend his
+invention in the courts, and successfully vindicated his claims to be
+called the original inventor of the electro-magnetic recording
+telegraph. Thenceforward Morse's life was spent in witnessing the growth
+of his enterprise, and in gathering the honors which an appreciative
+public bestowed upon him. As years went by he received from the various
+foreign governments their highest distinctions, while in 1858 the
+representatives of Austria, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Piedmont,
+Russia, the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page299" name="page299"></a>(p. 299)</span> Holy See, Sweden, Tuscany, and Turkey
+appropriated the sum of 400,000 francs in recognition of the use of his
+instruments in those countries.</p>
+
+<p>The telegraph is not the only great success with which the name of
+Samuel Morse is honorably connected. Having made the acquaintance of
+Daguerre in Paris, he studied with him the infancy of photography, and
+was the first to take sun pictures, or daguerreotypes, in America. Also
+it was he who made the first submarine electric cable. This was laid in
+New York Harbor; and from it he was the first to conceive that
+stupendous idea of the transoceanic telegraph. In the preparations for
+laying the first Atlantic cable he took an active part, though the
+attempt of 1857, in which he personally engaged, was not successful. He
+died April 2, 1872, at New York, where his statue in bronze now stands
+in the Central Park.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>PETER COOPER<a id="footnotetag12" name="footnotetag12"></a><a href="#footnote12" title="Go to footnote 12"><span class="small">[12]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Clarence Cook</span><br>
+
+(1791-1883)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img026" name="img026"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img026.jpg" width="250" height="316" alt="Peter Cooper." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>It may be said, without exaggeration, that few men in our time and
+country, not occupying official position, have been so widely and
+sincerely mourned as the late Peter Cooper. Other men have been as
+genuinely good as he, and have founded charitable institutions as worthy
+and as useful, in their way, as the one which is to be the lasting
+monument to his memory. But Peter Cooper held a place in the hearts of
+his fellow-citizens which belonged to him alone. A man, to outward
+seeming, in manners and conversation as plain and homespun as his name,
+he held unshaken from youth to old age&mdash;and to few men is it allotted to
+live in uninterrupted health and action to the age of ninety-two&mdash;the
+confidence, the respect and the affection of all sorts of people: the
+rich and the poor, the high and the low, the learned and the unlearned,
+people of all parties and of all religions. Character is the
+accumulation of little actions, and makes its deepest impression, of
+course, when these actions have been observed by great numbers of people
+during a long period of time. The whole of his ninety-two years, with
+the exception <span class="pagenum"><a id="page300" name="page300"></a>(p. 300)</span> of a short time passed in his youth in its
+vicinity, were spent by Mr. Cooper in the city of New York. It was
+little more than a country town when he was born; it was already one of
+the great cities of the world when he died; and in all that time he had
+been associated with the business enterprises that had helped its
+growth, as one of the chief actors.</p>
+
+<p>The fortune that he built up was both earned and expended here; the
+manner of its earning was known of all men, but the way in which it was
+expended was rather felt than known, for, like all great and generous
+benefactors, Mr. Cooper was without ostentation; but as he gave while he
+was alive and all the time that he was alive; and as he gave to the
+people among whom he lived, and not to outsiders, it naturally followed
+that his name, his person, his traits of character, became, as it were,
+a common possession to the people of New York; but few men upon whom
+such a glare of publicity had fallen for so many years would have been
+able to bear the scrutiny so well as Peter Cooper.</p>
+
+<p>He was born on February 12, 1791, presumably in Little Dock Street, now
+Water Street, Coenties Slip, where his father, John Cooper, carried on
+the trade of a hatter. His shop was near the store of John Jacob Astor,
+from whom he bought the beaver-skins which he made up into hats. John
+Cooper had served in the war of the Revolution, and when it ended, he
+retired with the rank of lieutenant. He married Margaret, the daughter
+of John Campbell, who also had served in the Continental army, as
+quartermaster, and who now carried on the trade of potter and tile-maker
+on the spot where St. Paul's Chapel now stands.</p>
+
+<p>To John and Margaret Cooper nine children were born, two daughters and
+seven sons, of whom Peter was the fifth, and was named after the apostle
+in the belief, as his father expressed it, that he would come to
+something. Following the fashion of the time, he was set to work at his
+father's trade as soon as he was old enough to work, as all his brothers
+had been before him: and in later years he described himself as a little
+boy, with his head just reaching the top of the table where he was set
+to pulling out the hairs from rabbit skins to use in making fur hats;
+and he was kept at the business until he was fifteen, when, as he used
+to tell, he had learned to make every part of a hat. So independent is
+business success of what is commonly called education, that it may be of
+interest to record that Peter Cooper never went to school for more than
+one year, and only in the half of each day of school: his parents were
+poor, and could not spare what his labor earned, and besides his health
+was delicate, and the confinement of school was thought more injurious
+to him than the work in the shop. In consequence of this restriction
+Peter Cooper grew to manhood with very little learning beyond reading,
+writing, and the rudiments of arithmetic, and while this was a source of
+regret to him all his life, it was in reality the spur that drove him to
+found an institution that should take away all excuses for ignorance
+from the coming generations of poor boys in his native city.</p>
+
+<p>The elder Cooper would seem to have been a man of small practical
+capacity or staying power, for he moved about from place to place,
+changing his business in the hope of bettering his condition; now going
+to Peekskill to set up a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page301" name="page301"></a>(p. 301)</span> brewery; thence to Catskill, where he
+added brick-making to making beer; then to Brooklyn to try hatting
+again; and finally to Newburgh, where he returned to brewing. In all
+these shiftings of home and business Peter remained with his father and
+gave him what help he could; he used in later life to recall his
+carrying about the beer-kegs to his father's customers; but at the age
+of seventeen, with his parents' consent, he came back to New York, and
+looked about for work on his own account. He had saved up from his small
+earnings, while with his father, the sum of ten dollars, and with this,
+he tells us, he bought a lottery ticket, which drew a blank. This
+seeming misfortune he turned to good account, for he then determined
+never to trust to luck again, but to be content to earn his bread in the
+appointed way: it was his first and last speculation. On reaching New
+York he had the usual difficulty in finding employment, but at length
+was accepted as an apprentice by a firm of carriage-makers, to whom,
+with his father's consent, he bound himself until he should come of age;
+his masters agreeing to pay him $25 a year and his board. His
+grandmother had a house on Broadway, in which she gave him the use of an
+upper room, and here in his spare hours he employed himself in
+wood-carving, in which he acquired some proficiency. In his business he
+worked so industriously, and made himself so valuable to his employers,
+that when his time expired they offered to lend him the money to go into
+business for himself; but he did not accept this generous offer, as he
+was determined never to be in debt. While with Messrs. Burtis and
+Woodward he had invented a machine for mortising wheel-hubs, thus giving
+the first evidence of an inventive faculty which, though never
+accomplishing great things, was often of considerable service both to
+himself and the community. On leaving the business of carriage-making
+Peter Cooper went to Hempstead, L. I., where he found work in a woollen
+factory. Here he invented and patented an improvement on the machine in
+use for shearing the nap of cloth; and as during the war of 1812 all
+commerce with England ceased, cloth-making in America flourished, and
+from the sale of his machines, which he could hardly make fast enough to
+supply the demand, young Cooper reaped a considerable profit. One of his
+first customers was the late Matthew Vassar, of Poughkeepsie, to whom he
+not only sold some of his machines, but also the right to dispose of
+them in Dutchess County. When he found that his earnings had enabled him
+to lay by the sum of $500, he thought himself justified in asking a
+young woman, Miss Sarah Bedel, whom he had met when in Hempstead, to
+become his wife; but before doing so, he determined to visit his parents
+in Newburgh, and inform them of his intention. He found them in great
+trouble, his father in debt and needing help; and without hesitation he
+placed his small savings at his disposal, paid the most pressing of the
+debts, and made arrangements for paying off the rest. His father was
+thus saved from bankruptcy by his son's devotion; but the action was
+characteristic of Peter Cooper, both in its unselfishness, and as
+indicative of his business integrity. He would never be in debt himself,
+and he was equally resolved to keep those belonging to him as free as
+himself. He took pride in the fact that neither he nor his father had
+ever <span class="pagenum"><a id="page302" name="page302"></a>(p. 302)</span> failed in business; and this is the more remarkable,
+since in the course of his business life the country passed through no
+less than ten serious commercial panics.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Cooper and Miss Bedel were married on December 22, 1813, when he
+was twenty-two and the lady twenty-one. Their married life, as it was
+exceptionally long, so it was exceptionally happy. It lasted fifty-six
+years; Mrs. Cooper died in 1869, and Mr. Cooper survived her fourteen
+years, dying in 1883. Their golden wedding was celebrated in 1863. They
+had six children, but only two lived to grow up; the Hon. Edward Cooper,
+once mayor of the city, and Sarah Amelia Cooper, the wife of the Hon.
+Abram S. Hewitt. Mr. James Parton says: "There never was a happier
+marriage than this. To old age Mr. Cooper never sat near his wife
+without holding her hand in his. He never spoke to her, nor of her,
+without some tender epithet. He attributed the great happiness of his
+life and most of his success to her admirable qualities. She seconded
+every good impulse of his benevolence, and made the fulfilment of his
+great scheme possible by her wise and resolute economy."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cooper seems to have inherited something of his father's business
+restlessness, for in addition to the many pursuits in which we have seen
+him engage, he now bought a grocery stand, and in about a year gave that
+up and purchased a glue factory, selling his grocery business and buying
+a lease of the glue factory for twenty-one years, for $2,000, his whole
+savings. He differed from his father in this, that everything prospered
+with which he had to do. The grocery had done well, but the glue factory
+did better. "At that time nearly all the glue used in this country was
+imported from Ireland, and sold at a high price. Mr. Cooper studied the
+subject and experimented, until he was able to make better glue than the
+Irish and sell it at a lower price, and he soon had nearly the entire
+glue business of the country in his hands." But chance had nothing to do
+with Mr. Cooper's success: the secret of that success was unremitting
+industry and generous economy. He worked that he might earn, and he
+saved that he might use and give. For twenty years while he held the
+glue factory, he was his own bookkeeper, clerk, and salesman; going to
+the factory at daybreak to light the fires, and spending the evenings at
+home, posting his books, writing, and reading to his family.</p>
+
+<p>In 1828, moved by the interest in business circles in the completion of
+the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Mr. Cooper, with two partners, bought a
+tract of three thousand acres within the city limits of Baltimore. By
+the failure of his associates to meet the payment of their shares, Mr.
+Cooper was obliged to shoulder the whole cost, amounting to $105,000.
+The road, too, owing to unexpected difficulties in construction, was
+dreading bankruptcy, from which it was saved by Mr. Cooper's ingenuity
+in devising a locomotive that enabled the company to overcome certain
+difficulties that had been thought insurmountable. Failing in the end to
+sell his land as he had hoped, Mr. Cooper decided to utilize the timber
+growing on it in the manufacture of charcoal iron. When he had, after
+many difficulties, established his works, he sold out to some Boston
+capitalists, who <span class="pagenum"><a id="page303" name="page303"></a>(p. 303)</span> formed the Canton Iron Company. Mr. Cooper
+took a large part of the purchase in stock at $45 a share, which he
+finally sold out at $230 a share.</p>
+
+<p>This was the beginning of his interest in the iron business, where the
+greater part of his fortune was made. The remainder came from his glue
+works and the industries connected with them. In 1873, the year of the
+great panic, in a letter to President Grant suggesting remedial
+legislation, Mr. Cooper said that not less than a thousand persons
+depended for their bread on the business carried on in the circle of his
+family. He had at that time two rolling-mills running, and two mills for
+the manufacture of wire and springs; and his glue, oil, and isinglass
+works gave employment to two hundred persons.</p>
+
+<p>The story of Mr. Cooper's connection with the laying of the Atlantic
+cable has been so often told, that we do not repeat it here. It adds
+further testimony to his indomitable energy, his largeness of view, his
+financial ability, and the confidence that was felt in him by his
+fellow-men. The story of the difficulties, failures and final success of
+this grandest achievement of modern science and enterprise, is as
+romantic as any episode in social history.</p>
+
+<p>But, in Peter Cooper's view, the most important event in his life&mdash;the
+one to which all his energies, his thoughts, his economics had been
+steadily directed since his youth&mdash;was the founding of the institution
+that bears his name, and that has made him a powerful factor in the
+development of New York. It was the outcome, in the first place, of its
+founder's regret for the deficiencies of his own early training, which
+were owing partly to his parents' poverty and partly to the lack of
+public or free schools in his native city when he was a boy. But this
+regret, which could only have been felt by a man of superior
+intelligence, was made to flower in this great result by Mr. Cooper's
+genuine, deep, and unfailing love for his fellow-men, and his belief in
+the duty of every man to help the race forward in its progress to a
+better social condition. He has himself stated the principles on which
+his life was founded. His aim was "to render some equivalent to society,
+in some useful form of labor, for each day of his existence;" and "while
+he had always recognized that the object of business is to make money in
+an honorable manner, he had endeavored to remember that the object of
+life is to do good."</p>
+
+<p>In 1876 Mr. Cooper was nominated for the presidency by the National
+Independent or "Greenback" party. It was with no selfish ambition that
+he allowed his name to go before the voters of the country, and his only
+regret at the result was that a policy was defeated which he believed to
+be for the public good.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cooper died April 4, 1883, at the age of ninety-two, after a short
+illness, the result of a cold. At his funeral, the late Dr. Crosby said:
+"What an example has been set by this life to our young men! How it
+shows them what the true aim of life should be! What an example to our
+wealthy men to show that money obtained by honest industry, and spent in
+benefiting mankind, will never produce war between labor and capital,
+but will assuage all angry elements, and give universal peace! Oh! if
+all our wealthy men were like Peter Cooper, all <span class="pagenum"><a id="page304" name="page304"></a>(p. 304)</span> classes would
+be satisfied, all commotions cease, and the community would be as near
+perfection&mdash;as near perfection in the pecuniary view&mdash;as it possibly
+could be on earth."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig008" name="sig008"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig008.jpg" width="300" height="66" alt="Author signature. Clarence Cook." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>LOUIS KOSSUTH<br>
+
+(1802-1894)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img027" name="img027"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img027.jpg" width="250" height="275" alt="Louis Kossuth." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Louis Kossuth was born at Monok, in Zemplin, one of the northern
+counties of Hungary, April 21, 1802. His family was ancient, but
+impoverished; his father served in the Austrian army during the wars
+against Napoleon; his mother is represented to have been a woman of
+extraordinary force of mind and character. Kossuth thus adds another to
+the long list of great men who seem to have inherited their genius from
+their mothers. As a boy he was remarkable for the winning gentleness of
+his disposition, and for an earnest enthusiasm, which gave promise of
+future eminence, could he but break the bonds imposed by low birth and
+iron fortune. A young clergyman was attracted by the character of the
+boy, and voluntarily took upon himself the office of his tutor, and thus
+first opened before his mind visions of a broader world than that of the
+miserable village of his residence. But these serene days of power
+expanding under genial guidance soon passed away. His father died, his
+tutor was translated to another post, and the walls of his prison-house
+seemed again to close upon the boy. But by the aid of members of his
+family, themselves in humble circumstances, he was enabled to attend
+such schools as the district furnished. Little worth knowing was taught
+there; but among that little was the Latin language; and through that
+door the young dreamer was introduced into the broad domains of history,
+where, abandoning the mean present, he could range at will through the
+immortal past.</p>
+
+<p>In times of peace the law offers to an aspiring youth the readiest means
+of ascent from a low degree to lofty stations. Kossuth, therefore, when
+just entering upon manhood, made his way to Pesth, the capital, to study
+the legal profession. Here he entered the office of a notary, and began
+gradually to make himself known by his liberal opinions and the fervid
+eloquence with which he set forth and maintained them; and men began to
+see in him the promise of a powerful public writer, orator, and debater.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page305" name="page305"></a>(p. 305)</span> The man and the hour were alike preparing. In 1825, the year
+before Kossuth arrived at Pesth, the critical state of her Italian
+possessions compelled Austria to provide extraordinary revenues. The
+Hungarian Diet was then assembled, after an interval of thirteen years.
+This Diet at once demanded certain measures of reform before they would
+make the desired pecuniary grants. The court was obliged to concede
+these demands. Kossuth, having completed his legal studies, and finding
+no favorable opening in the capital, returned, in 1830, to his native
+district, and commenced the practice of the law, with marked success. He
+also began to make his way toward public life by his assiduous
+attendance and intelligent action in the local assemblies. A new Diet
+was assembled in 1832, and he received a commission as the
+representative in the Diet of a magnate who was absent. As proxy for an
+absentee he was only charged, by the Hungarian Constitution, with a very
+subordinate part, his functions being more those of a counsel than of a
+delegate. This, however, was a post much sought for by young and
+aspiring lawyers, as giving them an opportunity of mastering legal
+forms, displaying their abilities, and forming advantageous connections.</p>
+
+<p>This Diet renewed the Liberal struggle with increased vigor. By far the
+best talent of Hungary was ranged upon the Liberal side. Kossuth early
+made himself known as a debater, and gradually won his way upward, and
+became associated with the leading men of the Liberal party, many of
+whom were among the proudest and richest of the Hungarian magnates. He
+soon undertook to publish a report of the debates and proceedings of the
+Diet. This attempt was opposed by the Palatine, and a law hunted up
+which forbade the "printing and publishing" of these reports. He, for a
+while, evaded the law by having his sheet lithographed. It increased in
+its development of democratic tendencies, and in popularity, until
+finally the lithographic press was seized by Government. Kossuth,
+determined not to be baffled, still issued his journal, every copy being
+written out by scribes, of whom he employed a large number. To avoid
+seizure at the post-office, they were circulated through the local
+authorities, who were almost invariably on the Liberal side. His
+periodical penetrated into every part of the kingdom, and men saw with
+wonder a young and almost unknown public writer boldly pitting himself
+against Metternich and the whole Austrian cabinet. Kossuth might well,
+at this period, declare that he "felt within himself something
+nameless."</p>
+
+<p>In the succeeding Diets the Opposition grew still more determined.
+Kossuth, though twice admonished by Government, still continued his
+journal; and no longer confined himself to simple reports of the
+proceedings of the Diet, but added political remarks of the keenest
+satire and most bitter denunciation. He was aware that his course was a
+perilous one. He was once found by a friend walking in deep reverie in
+the fortress of Buda, and in reply to a question as to the subject of
+his meditations, he said, "I was looking at the casemates, for I fear
+that I shall soon be quartered there." Government finally determined to
+use arguments more cogent than discussion could furnish. Baron
+Wesselenyi, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page306" name="page306"></a>(p. 306)</span> the leader of the Liberal party, was arrested,
+together with a number of his adherents, among whom Kossuth was of too
+much note to be overlooked.</p>
+
+<p>Kossuth became at once sanctified in the popular mind as a martyr.
+Liberal subscriptions were raised through the country for the benefit of
+his mother and sisters, whom he had supported by his exertions, and who
+were now left without protection. Wesselenyi became blind in prison;
+Lovassi, an intimate friend of Kossuth, lost his reason; and Kossuth
+himself, as was certified by his physicians, was in imminent risk of
+falling a victim to a serious disease. The rigor of his confinement was
+mitigated; he was allowed books, newspapers, and writing materials, and
+suffered to walk daily upon the bastions of the fortress, in charge of
+an officer. Among those who were inspired with admiration for his
+political efforts, and with sympathy for his fate, was Teresa Mezlenyi,
+the young daughter of a nobleman. She sent him books, and corresponded
+with him during his imprisonment; and they were married in 1841, soon
+after his liberation.</p>
+
+<p>In the second year of Kossuth's imprisonment Austria again needed
+Hungarian assistance. The threatening aspect of affairs in the East,
+growing out of the relations between Turkey and Egypt, determined all
+the great powers to increase their armaments. A demand was made upon the
+Hungarian Diet for an additional levy of 18,000 troops. A large body of
+delegates was chosen pledged to oppose this grant except upon condition
+of certain concessions, among which was a general amnesty, with a
+special reference to the cases of Wesselenyi and Kossuth. The more
+sagacious of the Conservative party advised Government to liberate all
+the prisoners, with the exception of Kossuth; and to do this before the
+meeting of the Diet, in order that their liberation might not be made a
+condition of granting the levy, which must be the occasion of great
+excitement. The cabinet temporized and did nothing. The Diet was opened,
+and the contest was waged during six months. The Opposition had a
+majority of two in the Chamber of Deputies, but were in a meagre
+minority in the Chamber of Magnates. But Metternich and the cabinet grew
+alarmed at the struggle, and were eager to obtain the grant of men, and
+to close the refractory Diet. In 1840 a royal rescript suddenly made its
+appearance, granting the amnesty, accompanied also with conciliatory
+remarks, and the demands of the Government for men and money were at
+once complied with.</p>
+
+<p>Kossuth issued from prison, in 1840, bearing in his debilitated frame,
+his pallid face, and glassy eyes, traces of severe sufferings, both of
+mind and body. He repaired for a time to a watering-place among the
+mountains to recruit his shattered health. His imprisonment had done
+more for his influence than he could have effected if at liberty. The
+visitors at the watering-place treated with silent respect the man who
+moved about among them in dressing-gown and slippers, and whose slow
+steps, and languid features, disfigured with yellow spots, proclaimed
+him an invalid. Abundant subscriptions had been made for his benefit and
+that of his family, and he now stood on an equality with the proudest
+magnates. These had so often used the name of the "Martyr of the Liberty
+of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page307" name="page307"></a>(p. 307)</span> Press," in pointing their speeches, that they now had
+no choice but to accept the popular verdict as their own.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after his liberation, Kossuth came forward as the principal editor
+of the <i>Pesth Gazette</i> (<i>Pesthi Hirlap</i>), which a bookseller who enjoyed
+the protection of the Government had received permission to establish.
+The name of the editor was now sufficient to electrify the country; and
+Kossuth at once stood forth as the advocate of the rights of the lower
+and middle classes against the inordinate privileges and immunities
+enjoyed by the magnates. But when he went to the extent of demanding
+that the house-tax should be paid by all classes in the community, not
+even excepting the highest nobility, a party was raised up against him
+among the nobles, who established a paper to combat so disorganizing a
+doctrine. This party, backed by the influence of the Government,
+succeeded in defeating the election of Kossuth as member from Pesth for
+the Diet of 1843. He was, however, very active in the local assembly of
+the capital.</p>
+
+<p>Kossuth was not altogether without support among the higher nobles. The
+blind old Wesselenyi traversed the country, advocating rural freedom and
+the abolition of the urbarial burdens. Among his supporters at this
+period, also, was Count Louis Batthyanyi, one of the most considerable
+of the Magyar magnates, subsequently President of the Hungarian
+Ministry, and the most illustrious martyr of the Hungarian cause. Aided
+by his powerful support, Kossuth was again brought forward, in 1847, as
+one of the two candidates from Pesth. The Government party, aware that
+they were in a decided minority, limited their efforts to an attempt to
+defeat the election of Kossuth. This they endeavored to effect by
+stratagem, but failed utterly.</p>
+
+<p>Kossuth no sooner took his seat in the Diet than the foremost place was
+at once conceded to him. At the opening of the session he moved an
+address to the king, concluding with the petition that "liberal
+institutions, similar to those of the Hungarian Constitution, might be
+accorded to all the hereditary states, that thus might be created a
+united Austrian monarchy, based upon broad and constitutional
+principles." During the early months of the session Kossuth showed
+himself a most accomplished parliamentary orator and debater; and
+carried on a series of attacks upon the policy of the Austrian cabinet,
+which for skill and power have few parallels in the annals of
+parliamentary warfare. Those form a very inadequate conception of its
+scope and power, whose ideas of the eloquence of Kossuth are derived
+solely from the impassioned and exclamatory harangues which he flung out
+during the war. These were addressed to men wrought up to the utmost
+tension, and can be judged fairly only by men in a state of high
+excitement. He adapted his matter and manner to the occasion and the
+audience. Some of his speeches are marked by a stringency of logic
+worthy of Webster or Calhoun; but it was what all eloquence of a high
+order must ever be&mdash;"logic red-hot."</p>
+
+<p>Now came the French Revolution of February, 1848. The news of it reached
+Vienna on March 1st, and was received at Presburg on the 2d. On the
+following day Kossuth delivered his famous speech on the finances and
+the state of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page308" name="page308"></a>(p. 308)</span> monarchy generally, concluding with a
+proposed "Address to the Throne," urging a series of reformatory
+measures. Among the foremost of these was the emancipation of the
+country from feudal burdens&mdash;the proprietors of the soil to be
+indemnified by the state; equalizing taxation; a faithful administration
+of the revenue to be satisfactorily guaranteed; the further development
+of the representative system; and the establishment of a government
+representing the voice of, and responsible to, the nation. The speech
+produced an effect almost without parallel in the annals of debate. Not
+a word was uttered in reply, and the motion was unanimously carried. On
+March 13th took place the revolution in Vienna which overthrew the
+Metternich cabinet. On the 15th the constitution granted by the emperor
+to all the nations within the empire was solemnly proclaimed amid the
+wildest transports of joy. Henceforth there were to be no more Germans
+or Sclavonians, Magyars or Italians; strangers embraced and kissed each
+other in the streets, for all the heterogeneous races of the empire were
+now brothers: as likewise were all the nations of the earth at
+Anacharsis Klootz's "Feast of Pikes" in Paris on that 14th day of July
+in the year of grace 1790&mdash;and yet, notwithstanding, came the "Reign of
+Terror."</p>
+
+<p>Among the demands made by the Hungarian Diet was that of a separate and
+responsible ministry for Hungary. The Palatine, Archduke Stephen, to
+whom the conduct of affairs in Hungary had been intrusted, persuaded the
+emperor to accede to this demand, and on the following day Batthyanyi,
+who, with Kossuth and a deputation of delegates of the Diet was in
+Vienna, was named President of the Hungarian ministry. It was, however,
+understood that Kossuth was the life and soul of the new ministry.</p>
+
+<p>Kossuth assumed the Department of Finance, then, as long before and now,
+the post of difficulty under Austrian administration. The Diet,
+meanwhile, went on to consummate the series of reforms which Kossuth had
+so long and steadfastly advocated.</p>
+
+<p>Up to this time there had been, indeed, a vigorous and decided
+opposition, but no insurrection. The true cause of the Hungarian war was
+the hostility of the Austrian Government to the whole series of
+reformatory measures which had been effected through the instrumentality
+of Kossuth; but its immediate occasion was the jealousy which sprung up
+among the Servian and Croatian dependencies of Hungary against the
+Hungarian ministry. This soon broke out into an open revolt, headed by
+Baron Jellachich, who had just been appointed Ban, or Lord, of Croatia.
+How far the Serbs and Croats had occasion for jealousy is of little
+consequence to our present purpose to inquire; though we may say, in
+passing, that the proceedings of the Magyars toward the other Hungarian
+races was marked by a far more just and generous feeling and conduct
+than could have been possibly expected. But however the case may have
+been, as between the Magyars and Croats, as between the Hungarians and
+Austria, the hostile course of the latter is without excuse or
+palliation. The emperor had solemnly sanctioned the action of the Diet,
+and did as solemnly denounce the proceedings of Jellachich. On May 29th
+the Ban was summoned to present himself at Innsprück <span class="pagenum"><a id="page309" name="page309"></a>(p. 309)</span> to answer
+for his conduct, and as he did not make his appearance, an imperial
+manifesto was issued on June 10th depriving him of all his dignities,
+and commanding the authorities at once to break off all intercourse with
+him. He, however, still continued his operations, and levied an army for
+the invasion of Hungary, and a fierce and bloody war of races broke out,
+marked on both sides by the most fearful atrocities.</p>
+
+<p>The Hungarian Diet was opened on July 5th, when the Palatine, Archduke
+Stephen, in the name of the king, solemnly denounced the conduct of the
+insurgent Croats. A few days after, Kossuth, in a speech in the Diet,
+set forth the perilous state of affairs, and concluded by asking for
+authority to raise an army of 200,000 men, and a large amount of money.
+These proposals were adopted by acclamation, the enthusiasm in the Diet
+rendering any debate impossible and superfluous.</p>
+
+<p>The Imperial forces having been victorious in Italy, and one pressing
+danger being thus averted from the empire, the Austrian cabinet began
+openly to display its hostility to the Hungarian movement. Jellachich
+repaired to Innsprück, and was openly acknowledged by the court, and the
+decree of deposition was revoked. Early in September Hungary and Austria
+stood in an attitude of undisguised hostility. On the 5th of that month
+Kossuth, though enfeebled by illness, was carried to the hall of the
+Diet, where he delivered a speech, declaring that so formidable were the
+dangers that surrounded the nation, that the ministers might soon be
+forced to call upon the Diet to name a dictator, clothed with unlimited
+powers, to save the country; but before taking this final step they
+would recommend a last appeal to the Imperial Government. A large
+deputation was thereupon despatched to the emperor, to lay before him
+the demands of the Hungarian nation. No satisfactory answer was
+returned, and the deputation left the imperial presence in silence. On
+their return they plucked from their caps the plumes of the united
+colors of Austria and Hungary, and replaced them with red feathers, and
+hoisted a flag of the same color on the steamer which conveyed them to
+Pesth. Their report produced the most intense agitation in the Diet and
+at the capital, but it was finally resolved to make one more attempt for
+a pacific settlement of the question. In order that no obstacle might be
+interposed by their presence, Kossuth and his colleagues resigned, and a
+new ministry was appointed. A deputation was sent to the National
+Assembly at Vienna, which refused to receive it. Jellachich had in the
+meantime entered Hungary with a large army, not as yet, however, openly
+sanctioned by imperial authority. The Diet, seeing the imminent peril of
+the country, conferred dictatorial powers upon Kossuth. The Palatine
+resigned his post and left the kingdom. The emperor appointed Count
+Lemberg to take the entire command of the Hungarian army. The Diet
+declared the appointment illegal, and the count, arriving at Pesth
+without escort, was slain in the streets of the capital by the populace,
+in a sudden outbreak. The emperor forthwith placed the kingdom under
+martial law, giving the supreme civil and military power to Jellachich.
+The Diet at once revolted, declared itself permanent, and appointed
+Kossuth Governor, and President of the Committee of Safety.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page310" name="page310"></a>(p. 310)</span> There was now but one course left for the Hungarians: to
+maintain by force of arms the position they had assumed. We cannot
+detail the events of the war which followed, but merely touch upon the
+most salient points. Jellachich was speedily driven out of Hungary
+toward Vienna. In October the Austrian forces were concentrated, under
+command of Windischgrätz, to the number of 120,000 veterans, and were
+put on the march for Hungary. To oppose them the only forces under the
+command of the new government of Hungary were 20,000 regular infantry,
+7,000 cavalry, and 14,000 recruits, who received the name of Honveds, or
+"protectors of home." Of all the movements that followed, Kossuth was
+the soul and chief. His burning and passionate appeals stirred up the
+souls of the peasants, and sent them by thousands to the camp. He
+kindled enthusiasm, he organized that enthusiasm, and transformed those
+raw recruits into soldiers more than a match for the veteran troops of
+Austria. Though himself not a soldier, he discovered and drew about him
+soldiers and generals of a high order. The result was that Windischgrätz
+was driven back from Hungary, and of the 120,000 troops which he led
+into that kingdom in October, one-half were killed, disabled, or taken
+prisoners at the end of April. The state of the war on May 1st may be
+gathered from the imperial manifesto of that date, which announced that
+"the insurrection in Hungary had grown to such an extent" that the
+Imperial Government "had been induced to appeal to the assistance of his
+majesty the Czar of all the Russias, who generously and readily granted
+it to a most satisfactory extent." The issue of the contest could no
+longer be doubtful when the immense weight of Russia was thrown into the
+scale. In modern warfare there is a limit beyond which devotion and
+enthusiasm cannot supply the place of numbers and material force. And
+that limit was overpassed when Russia and Austria were pitted against
+Hungary.</p>
+
+<p>On May 1st the Russian intervention was announced. On August 11th
+Kossuth resigned his dictatorship into the hands of Görgey, who, two
+days after, in effect closed the war by surrendering to the Russians.</p>
+
+<p>The Hungarian war thus lasted a little more than eleven months, during
+which time there was but one ruling and directing spirit, and that was
+Kossuth, to whose immediate career we now return.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing remained for him and his companions but flight. They gained the
+Turkish frontier, and threw themselves on the hospitality of the sultan,
+who promised them a safe asylum. Russia and Austria demanded that the
+fugitives should be given up; but being supported by France and England,
+the sultan arranged a compromise by which they were detained in Asia
+Minor as prisoners. Kossuth was released in 1851, and made a tour of the
+United States, agitating in favor of Hungary. He never returned to his
+native land, but lived an exile for over forty years. For a while he
+struggled desperately to help the Hungarians; then, finding that the
+universal progress of liberal ideas was doing more for them than he ever
+could, he resigned himself to a peaceful life devoted to literature and
+science. He died at Turin, March 20, 1894, reverenced by all the world,
+and mourned by his countrymen with tumultuous demonstrations as their
+national hero.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page311" name="page311"></a>(p. 311)</span> Kossuth occupies a position peculiarly his own, whether we
+regard the circumstances of his rise, or the feelings which have
+followed him in his fall. Born in the middle ranks of life, he raised
+himself by sheer force of intellect to the loftiest place among the
+proudest nobles on earth, without ever deserting or being deserted by
+the class from which he sprung. He effected a sweeping reform without
+appealing to any sordid or sanguinary motive. No soldier himself, he
+transformed a country into a camp, and a nation into an army. He
+transmuted his words into batteries, and his thoughts into soldiers.
+Without ever having looked upon a stricken field, he organized the most
+complete system of resistance to despotism that the history of
+revolutions has furnished. It failed, but only failed where nothing
+could have succeeded.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>JOHN ERICSSON<a id="footnotetag13" name="footnotetag13"></a><a href="#footnote13" title="Go to footnote 13"><span class="small">[13]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Martha J. Lamb</span><br>
+
+(1803-1889)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img028" name="img028"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img028.jpg" width="250" height="274" alt="John Ericsson." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>In a message, referring to the relations of our country with the several
+nations of Europe, President Harrison said: "The restoration of the
+remains of John Ericsson to Sweden afforded a gratifying occasion to
+honor the memory of the great inventor, to whose genius our country owes
+so much, and to bear witness to the unbroken friendship which has
+existed between the land which bore him and our own, which claimed him
+as a citizen."</p>
+
+<p>This paragraph is a forcible reminder of the impressive ceremonial
+witnessed in the streets and harbor of New York City, on Saturday,
+August 23, 1890. It had been intimated to this Government, as is well
+known, that the Government of Sweden would regard it as a graceful act
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page312" name="page312"></a>(p. 312)</span> if the remains of Captain John Ericsson should be conveyed to
+his native country upon a United States man-of-war; and arrangements
+having been completed, the Baltimore was assigned to the service. In
+committing the illustrious dead to the care of the commander of the
+Baltimore, Mr. George H. Robinson said: "We send him back crowned with
+honor, proud of the life of fifty years he devoted to this nation, and
+with gratitude for his gifts to us."</p>
+
+<p>John Ericsson's birthplace in Sweden is marked by a large granite
+monument erected in 1867. His father was a mining proprietor, and his
+mother an energetic, intellectual, and high-spirited woman. His brother,
+Nils, one year older than himself, was trained as an engineer, became
+chief of the construction of the system of government railways in
+Sweden, was created a baron, and retired in 1862 with a pension larger
+than any before bestowed upon a Swedish subject. His sister Caroline,
+born in 1800, was a girl of unusual beauty. As a boy John was the wonder
+of the neighborhood. The machinery at the mines was to him an endless
+source of curiosity and delight. He was constantly trying to make
+models, even before he had learned to read. He had from his own plans
+constructed a miniature saw-mill prior to his tenth birthday, and made
+numerous drawings of a complicated character. The graphic account of his
+youth and early manhood which his biographer presents is full of
+suggestion and instruction. The boy was too much occupied with his
+contrivances to join in the pastimes of other children. His
+opportunities were unusually stimulating. The project of the Göta Canal
+Company, one of the most formidable undertakings of its kind, was
+revived when he was about ten years old, his father being appointed one
+of its engineers, holding place next to that of the chief of the work.
+This opened a new world of ideas, and the little fellow undertook all
+manner of schemes. He was independent of outside assistance. Steel
+tweezers, borrowed from his mother's dressing-case and ground to a
+point, furnished him with a drawing pen, and his compasses were made of
+birch-wood with needles inserted at the end of the legs. Later on, he
+robbed his mother's sable cloak of the hairs required for two small
+brushes, in order to complete his drawings in appropriate colors. The
+clever lad attracted the notice of some of the greatest mechanical
+draughtsmen in Sweden, who made him drawings to serve as models, and
+taught him many of the principles of the art. Finally the celebrated
+engineer, Count Platen, becoming interested, appointed him a cadet in
+the corps of mechanical engineers; and such was his progress in
+sketching profiles, maps, and drawings for the archives of the canal
+company, that in 1816, at the age of thirteen, he was made assistant
+leveller at the station of Riddarhagen. The next year he was employed to
+set out the work for six hundred operatives, though he was yet too small
+to reach the eye-piece of his levelling instrument without the aid of a
+stool carried by an attendant. Thus it will be seen that he was
+identified almost from his cradle with great engineering works. His
+father died in 1818, and in 1820, when seventeen, he entered the Swedish
+army as an ensign and was rapidly promoted to a lieutenancy.</p>
+
+<p>The skill of young Ericsson in topographical drawing was so marked that
+he <span class="pagenum"><a id="page313" name="page313"></a>(p. 313)</span> was soon summoned to the royal palace to draw maps to
+illustrate the campaigns of the marshal of the empire. He also passed
+with distinction a competitive examination for an appointment on the
+survey of Northern Sweden. This new employment was exacting, and the pay
+determined by the amount of work accomplished. Mr. Church says: "The
+young surveyor from the Göta Canal was so indefatigable in his industry
+and so rapid in execution, that he performed double duty and was carried
+on the pay-roll as two persons in order to avoid criticism and charges
+of favoritism. The results of his labors were maps of fifty square miles
+of territory, still preserved in the archives of Stockholm."</p>
+
+<p>At the age of twenty-one John Ericsson is described as "a handsome,
+dashing youth, with a cluster of thick, brown, glossy curls encircling
+his white, massive forehead. His mouth was delicate but firm, nose
+straight, eyes light blue, clear and bright, with a slight expression of
+sadness, his complexion brilliant with the freshness and glow of healthy
+youth. The broad shoulders carried most splendidly the proud, erect
+head. He presented, in short, the very picture of vigorous manhood. A
+portrait of him at this age, painted upon ivory for his mother by an
+English artist named Way, has been preserved."</p>
+
+<p>Fifteen years later he was in New York, and is thus described by Samuel
+Risley: "Captain Ericsson all his life was careful of his personal
+appearance; at the time I refer to (1839) he was exceptional in dress,
+not dandified, but more in keeping with the present morning-call attire
+than an ordinary day habit. A close-fitting black frock surtout coat,
+well open at the front, with rolling collar, showing velvet vest and a
+good display of shirt-front; a fine gold chain hung about his neck,
+looped at the first button-hole of the vest and attached to a watch
+carried in the fob of the vest. Usually light-colored, well-fitting
+trousers, light-colored kid gloves, and a beaver hat completed the
+dress. To this add a well-built military figure, about five feet ten and
+one-half inches in height and well set-up, with broad shoulders and
+rather large hands and feet; the head well placed and supported by a
+military stock round the neck. Expressive features, blue eyes, and brown
+curly hair, fair complexion. His head was of medium size, his mouth well
+cut, upper lip a little drawn, the jaws large and firm set, conveying an
+expression of firmness and individual character. Up to the summer of
+1842 I was in constant attendance upon the captain, being a sort of
+factotum to him in preparing his models. At that time he boarded at the
+Astor House, where I first met his wife. His manner with strangers was
+courteous and extremely taking. He invariably made friends of high and
+low alike. With those in immediate contact in carrying out his work he
+was very popular."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Church, in his biography, devotes three chapters to a delightfully
+condensed account of Ericsson's career in England, whither he went in
+1826 to exhibit his flame-engine. He quickly formed a partnership with
+John Braithwaite, a working engineer, and in his new field of activity
+produced invention after invention in such rapid succession that the
+truth reads like a fairy tale. An instrument for taking sea-soundings, a
+hydrostatic weighing-machine, his improvements in the
+steam-engine&mdash;dispensing with huge smoke-stacks, economizing <span class="pagenum"><a id="page314" name="page314"></a>(p. 314)</span>
+fuel, using compressed air and the artificial draught&mdash;and in surface
+condensation, were the work of this period, during which he also
+invented the steam fire-engine, which excited great interest in London.
+The famous battle of the locomotives in 1829 brought the young man of
+twenty-six before the English public in a manner never to be forgotten.
+At that date Stephenson himself dared not say very much about the speed
+of the locomotive. Had he ventured to predict that it would reach twenty
+miles an hour on the railway, he would have been laughed out of court.
+He cautiously expressed his faith in the possibility of running it ten
+miles an hour, and multitudes regarded the experiment with
+consternation. There was great prejudice then existing in England
+against railroads. It was a mode of conveyance that would bring noble
+and peasant to a common level, and fashion clung tenaciously to its
+earlier inconveniences, which had at least the merit of being exclusive.</p>
+
+<p>But in spite of the baleful prophecies concerning the locomotive engine,
+the officials of the projected railroad between Liverpool and
+Manchester, where the cars were expected to be drawn by horses, offered
+a premium of £500 for the best locomotive capable of drawing a gross
+weight of twenty tons at the rate of ten miles an hour. The conditions
+required a run of seventy miles. Five months were allowed for building
+the engines. Ericsson heard of the project only seven weeks before the
+appointed time of trial, and at once determined to compete. He hastily
+built the "Novelty," assisted by Braithwaite, and when the exhibition
+came off his was practically the only locomotive which disputed for the
+supremacy with Stephenson's "Rocket." But a portion of the railroad had
+yet been finished; thus the competing locomotives were compelled to
+cover their distance by making twenty trips back and forth over one and
+three-quarter miles of track. The excitement was intense. The London
+<i>Times</i> next morning said: "The 'Novelty' was the lightest and most
+elegant carriage on the road yesterday, and the velocity with which it
+moved surprised and amazed every beholder. It shot along the line at the
+amazing rate of thirty miles an hour! It seemed, indeed, to fly;
+presenting one of the most sublime spectacles of human ingenuity and
+human daring the world ever beheld."</p>
+
+<p>Ericsson had really built a much faster locomotive than Stephenson's
+"Rocket;" and although it had been constructed with such celerity that
+it broke down before the final point was reached, and he thereby lost
+the prize, yet the superiority of the principle involved in it was
+universally recognized. John Bourn said: "To most men the production of
+such an engine would have constituted an adequate claim to celebrity. In
+the case of Ericsson, it is only a single star of the brilliant galaxy
+with which his shield is spangled." "We may imagine," writes Mr. Church,
+"the excitement following the announcement in the <i>Times</i> concerning the
+performance of the 'Novelty,' for to this engine England's great daily
+devoted chief attention." Railroad shares leaped at once to a premium,
+and excited groups gathered on 'change to discuss the wonderful event.
+The pessimists were silenced, and the art of modern railway travel
+inaugurated. A grand banquet was given in Liverpool to the directors and
+officers <span class="pagenum"><a id="page315" name="page315"></a>(p. 315)</span> of the railway and to the competing locomotive
+builders. Toasts and speeches followed; and if Ericsson did not carry
+home with him the £500 offered as a prize, he at least made himself
+known to all England as one of the rising men of his profession.</p>
+
+<p>Ericsson's long-cherished plan of a caloric engine was realized in 1833,
+and was hailed with astonishment by the scientific world of London.
+Lectures were delivered on it by Dr. Dionysius Lardner and Michael
+Faraday, and it was much praised by Dr. Alexander Ure and Sir Richard
+Phillips. In 1836 Ericsson invented and patented the screw propeller,
+which revolutionized navigation, and in 1837 built a steam vessel having
+twin screw propellers, which on trial towed the American packet-ship
+Toronto at the rate of five miles an hour on the river Thames. In 1838
+he constructed the iron screw steamer Robert F. Stockton, which crossed
+the Atlantic under canvas in 1839, and was afterward employed as a
+tug-boat on the Delaware River for a quarter of a century. Within ten
+years Ericsson patented thirty inventions considered by him of
+sufficient importance to claim a place in the list that in 1863 numbered
+one hundred.</p>
+
+<p>A notable feature of the admirable work of Mr. Church is the elucidation
+of the truth, so often overlooked, that events never spring into being
+disjoined from antecedents leading to them. He explains how the varied
+achievements of John Ericsson were developed, showing with great force
+and in imperishable colors the steps to his successes, and the help the
+famous engineer derived in later life from the studies and experiments
+of his earlier career. Mr. Church, as the literary executor of Ericsson,
+has had unrivalled opportunities for examining the accumulation of data
+which throw light all along the way, and while dealing with the masterly
+engineering exploits of his subject, does not forget that he had a human
+side, and presents him with all his hopes and fears and failures, his
+aims, his obstacles, his courage, and his habits and eccentricities.
+Ericsson certainly cherished a very high ideal, and was free to an
+unusual extent from mercenary motives. His inventions did not always
+pay; he found this a weary world for those who see beyond their fellows.
+Some of his mechanical contrivances in common use to-day dated so far
+back of the memory of any one living that before he died he often
+learned that he was supposed to have copied from others what he, in
+fact, originated himself or first brought into use.</p>
+
+<p>The barriers of tradition and prejudice had to be overcome with his
+every new invention. The introduction of steam in any shape to the
+English navy was sharply opposed. It is interesting to trace the
+incidents, apparently without connection, which stand in orderly
+relations one to another as essential parts of an intelligent design.
+Ericsson was in America at the critical moment when all the experiences
+of his previous life were to be brought into full play; when he was to
+take part in an enterprise involving the existence of a nation, the
+hopes of humanity. He was ready to meet the strain of a demand to which
+no other living man was adequate. He was then fifty-eight years of age,
+with the constitution and the vital forces of a man of forty, and such
+experience in actual accomplishment as few acquire in the longest span
+of a lifetime.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page316" name="page316"></a>(p. 316)</span> When he received the order of our Government for the Monitor
+his plans were already drawn. He had been at work for years perfecting
+his system of aquatic attack, originally designed for the protection of
+Sweden against foreign aggression, and had in 1854 submitted his
+drawings to the Emperor of France. The story of his proceedings in
+Washington is familiar to our readers, but in these notable volumes of
+Mr. Church it is told with a fulness of detail never before attempted.
+The Monitor in all its parts was designed by Ericsson, and, fortunately
+for the country, he was allowed to superintend its construction. His
+former plans, however, had to be carefully revised to meet the novel
+conditions of life in a submerged structure. It was estimated that this
+iron-clad vessel contained at least forty patentable contrivances. The
+entire resources of modern engineering knowledge were brought to bear
+upon the solution of the problem of an impregnable battery, armed with
+guns of the heaviest calibre then known, hull shot-proof from stern to
+stern, rudder and propeller protected against the enemy's fire, and
+above all, having the advantage of light draught. Ericsson was made
+responsible for the successful working of his vessel in every respect.
+The anxiety of the Government was such that every stage in the progress
+of the work toward completion was watched with restless interest.
+Ericsson's nerves and sinews seemed to be made of steel. He scarcely
+took time to eat or sleep, and he was deluged with a continuous tempest
+of criticism, warning, and advice, from those who knew nothing about the
+intricacies of science involved in the undertaking. The least halting,
+even trifling delay, confusion of mind, or weakness of body, and the
+story of Hampton Roads might not have been written.</p>
+
+<p>The Monitor was finished and left the harbor of New York for Washington
+on the afternoon of March 6, 1862, in tow of a tug, and accompanied by
+two naval steamers. Chief Engineer Alban S. Stimers, U. S. N., who was
+on the vessel as a passenger, described in a letter, dated March 9,
+1862, to Ericsson, the dramatic incidents attending its arrival at
+Hampton Roads. "After a stormy passage we fought the Merrimac for more
+than three hours this forenoon, and sent her back to Norfolk in a
+sinking condition. Iron-clad against iron-clad, we man&oelig;uvred about
+the bay here, and went at each other with mutual fairness. I consider
+that both ships were well fought. We were struck twenty-two
+times&mdash;pilot-house twice, turret nine times, deck three times, sides
+eight times. The only vulnerable point was the pilot-house. One of your
+great logs (nine by twelve inches thick) is broken in two. The shot
+struck just outside of where the captain had his eye, and disabled him
+by destroying his left eye and temporarily blinding the other. She tried
+to run us down and sink us as she did the Cumberland yesterday, but she
+got the worst of it. Her horn passed over our deck, and our sharp,
+upper-edged rail cut through the light iron shoe upon her stern and well
+into her oak. She will not try that again. She gave us a tremendous
+thump, but did not injure us in the least; we were just able to find the
+point of contact. The turret is a splendid structure. You were very
+correct in your estimate of the effect of shot upon the man on the
+inside of the turret, when it struck near him. Three men were knocked
+down, of whom I was one. The other two had <span class="pagenum"><a id="page317" name="page317"></a>(p. 317)</span> to be carried
+below, but I was not disabled at all, and the others recovered before
+the battle was over. Captain Worden (afterward admiral) stationed
+himself at the pilot-house. Greene fired the guns, and I turned the
+turret until the captain was disabled and was relieved by Greene, when I
+managed the turret myself, Master Stoddard having been one of the two
+stunned men.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Ericsson, I congratulate you upon your great success; thousands
+here this day bless you. I have heard whole crews cheer you; every man
+feels that you have saved the nation by furnishing us with the means to
+whip an iron-clad frigate that was, until our arrival, having it all her
+own way with our most powerful vessels."</p>
+
+<p>If space permitted, it would be interesting to trace the career of
+Ericsson in detail after the success of the Monitor. There was an
+imperative demand for armor-clads, and ere long several were built by
+the inventor and his associates. Ericsson was never idle. In connection
+with his labors upon war vessels he expended no small amount of
+ingenuity on the improvement of heavy guns, his efforts in this field
+being directed by a most exhaustive study into the strength of
+materials, the operation of explosive forces, and the laws governing the
+flight of projectiles. In 1869 he constructed for the Spanish Government
+a fleet of thirty steam gunboats, intended to guard Cuba against
+filibustering parties. In 1881 he devised his latest war vessel, the
+Destroyer, the object of which he said was "simply to demonstrate the
+practicability of submarine artillery, unquestionably the most
+effective, as well as the cheapest, device for protecting the sea-ports
+of the Union against iron-clad ships. I do not," he continued, "seek
+emoluments, as I am financially independent; but I am anxious to benefit
+the great and liberal country which has enabled me to carry out
+important works which I should not have carried out on a monarchical
+soil." His investigations included computations of the influences which
+retard the earth's rotary motion; he erected a "sun motor" in 1883, to
+develop the power obtained from the supply of mechanical energy in the
+sun, and he contributed numerous valuable papers to various journals in
+America and Europe on scientific, naval, and mechanical themes.</p>
+
+<p>The year in which John Ericsson reached the culmination of his fame,
+1862, was the same in which his brother Nils retired from active life in
+Sweden. The latter had retained his position on the Göta Canal when his
+brother left it in 1820, and gradually won his way to fame and fortune.
+"He was a man of industry and energy, of sterling integrity and public
+spirit, and an excellent organizer; while his conservative and cautious
+temperament and his skill in bending others to his purposes enabled him
+to make the most of his opportunities." After he received his title he
+altered the spelling of his name and became Baron Ericson. This change
+gave great offence to John, who wrote to Nils: "I can never forget the
+unpleasantness caused me by this annulling of relationship. Possibly
+your wife has had her share in it. If so, she will find some day that
+the blotted-out letter will cost her children half a million."</p>
+
+<p>Some of the most interesting chapters in the work of Mr. Church relate
+to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page318" name="page318"></a>(p. 318)</span> the personal characteristics of John Ericsson. He was
+generous to his friends, and his benefactions to Sweden were
+considerable. The financial side of his affairs from year to year
+appears, as well as the record of his failures and successes. It is
+difficult to grasp the whole man and present him to the reader in all
+his many-sided aspects, or to touch upon the variety of his studies,
+endeavors, schemes, and achievements, without danger of bewilderment.
+His biographer has done all this, however, in the most skilful and
+acceptable manner.</p>
+
+<p>A list of the honors conferred upon Ericsson would fill one of our
+pages, and some of the medals received were very beautiful. He was
+decorated as Knight of the Order of Vasa, which was founded by Gustavus
+III. to reward important service to the nation; he was made Knight
+Commander of the Order of the North Star, for promoting the public good
+and useful institutions; a Commander of the Order of St. Olaf, to reward
+distinction in the arts and sciences; received the Grand Cross of the
+Order of Naval Merit, with the white badge and star, from King Alfonso
+of Spain, which confers personal nobility and bestowed upon Ericsson the
+title of "Excellency;" a special gold medal from the Emperor of Austria,
+in behalf of science; a gold medal from the Society of Iron-Masters in
+Sweden; thanks under the royal seal and signature from Sweden; joint
+resolutions of thanks from the United States Congress; thanks from the
+Legislatures of New York and of other States; from the Chamber of
+Commerce; from boards of trade in many cities; and he was elected to
+honorary membership in scientific, historical, literary, religious, and
+agricultural institutions innumerable. Among them all he took the most
+pride in his simple title of captain, and in the diploma of LL. D.
+received from the Wesleyan University in 1862.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON<a id="footnotetag14" name="footnotetag14"></a><a href="#footnote14" title="Go to footnote 14"><span class="small">[14]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">William Lloyd Garrison</span><br>
+
+(1805-1879)</h3>
+
+
+<p>William Lloyd Garrison, whose name is indissolubly connected with the
+abolition of American slavery, was born in the seaport town of
+Newburyport, Mass., on December 10, 1805. His father, Abijah Garrison,
+was a sea-captain who came from New Brunswick to settle in Newburyport.
+Deserting his wife and children while the subject of this sketch was in
+infancy, his subsequent career is shrouded in mystery. Fanny Lloyd, the
+mother of William Lloyd Garrison, was a woman of remarkable character
+and personal attraction, with an intense religious nature. Dependent
+upon her own efforts for the support of the family, she cheerfully took
+up the calling of monthly nurse, and endeavored to rear her children
+with care and forethought, and with especial attention to their
+religious training. Upon her removal to Lynn, in 1812, Lloyd was left to
+the care of Deacon Ezekiel <span class="pagenum"><a id="page319" name="page319"></a>(p. 319)</span> Bartlett and was sent to the
+Grammar School until, at the age of nine, he joined his mother in Lynn
+and was taught shoemaking in the shop of Gamaliel W. Oliver, a kind and
+excellent member of the Society of Friends, where his elder brother
+James was already an apprentice. In 1815, Mr. Paul Newhall, a shoe
+manufacturer of the same town, deciding to establish business in
+Baltimore, invited Mrs. Garrison and her two boys to accompany him.
+There Lloyd was employed as an errand-boy and James was again
+apprenticed at shoemaking. Mr. Newhall's venture proving unsuccessful,
+Mrs. Garrison was constrained to resume nursing and Lloyd was sent back
+to Newburyport, his brother betaking himself to the sea. From
+Newburyport he was sent to Haverhill to learn cabinet-making; but, in
+spite of kind treatment, he disliked the occupation and ran away from
+his master, returning to Newburyport to live again with his mother's old
+friend, Deacon Bartlett. In 1818, Ephraim W. Allen, proprietor of the
+Newburyport <i>Herald</i>, accepted Lloyd, then thirteen years of age, as an
+apprentice and taught him the printer's trade. Here at once he found a
+vocation suited to his tastes and became a rapid and accurate
+compositor. The printing-office proved an excellent school for the young
+man, developing his literary taste and ambition. He was fond of reading,
+and delighted in poetry and fiction. Politics especially attracted him,
+and at the age of sixteen he wrote anonymous articles for the columns of
+the <i>Herald</i>. His first contribution was over the signature of "An Old
+Bachelor." He was an ardent Federalist and his political articles
+attracted attention by their forcible reasoning and direct style. Caleb
+Cushing, then editor of the <i>Herald</i>, discovering the lad's abilities,
+encouraged and befriended him. In 1826, Mr. Garrison, closing his
+apprenticeship with the <i>Herald</i>, became editor and publisher of the
+<i>Free Press</i> (Newburyport), within a few months of his majority.</p>
+
+<a id="img029" name="img029"></a>
+<div class="floatright">
+<img src="images/img029.jpg" width="250" height="304" alt="William Lloyd Garrison." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>It was to this paper that Whittier made his first poetical contributions
+anonymously, and, upon the discovery of his true name, Mr. Garrison
+sought him out and encouraged him in his youthful efforts.</p>
+
+<p>After a brief existence of six months, the <i>Free Press</i> was sold and Mr.
+Garrison again became a journeyman printer, soon seeking employment in
+Boston, where, after various vicissitudes, he was employed by Rev.
+William Collier, a Baptist city missionary, upon <i>The National
+Philanthropist</i>, devoted to the "suppression of intemperance and kindred
+vices," becoming its editor in 1828. The paper had the distinction of
+being the first temperance journal ever printed, and among the earliest
+evidences of Mr. Garrison's interest in the slavery question was an
+editorial article by him commenting severely on the bill passed by the
+House of Assembly of South Carolina to forbid the teaching of reading
+and writing to the colored people.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page320" name="page320"></a>(p. 320)</span> To Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker, and at that time editor of the
+<i>Genius of Universal Emancipation</i>, in Baltimore&mdash;a paper devoted to the
+gradual abolition of slavery&mdash;belongs the honor of first attempting to
+awaken public sentiment on the subject. Upon his visit to Boston, August
+7, 1828, he made the acquaintance of Garrison, whose eyes he opened to
+the iniquity of the slave system. During the same year Mr. Garrison
+accepted the invitation of a committee of prominent citizens of
+Bennington, Vt., to edit the <i>Journal of the Times</i>, a weekly newspaper
+devoted to the re-election of John Quincy Adams against Andrew Jackson.
+While started for campaign purposes, the <i>Journal of the Times</i> declared
+for independence of party and advocated the suppression of intemperance,
+the gradual emancipation of the slave, the doctrines of peace, and the
+so-called American system of protection for fostering native industry.</p>
+
+<p>Attracted by the anti-slavery utterances of Mr. Garrison, Lundy resolved
+to invite him to share in the editorship of his paper, walking from
+Baltimore to Bennington for the purpose. His earnestness had the desired
+effect upon Mr. Garrison, who accepted his proffer and relinquished the
+<i>Journal of the Times</i>. Before going to Baltimore Mr. Garrison was
+invited to address the Congregational societies of Boston on July 4th,
+at the Park Street Church, and took for his theme "Dangers to the
+Nation." The poet John Pierpont was present and wrote a hymn for the
+occasion. The address was a stirring denunciation of slavery and a
+rebuke to the nation for its pretentious devotion to liberty. The
+speaker was accused by a Boston paper of slandering his country and
+blaspheming the Declaration of Independence.</p>
+
+<p>Upon his arrival at Baltimore, Garrison, having convinced himself of the
+necessity of immediate and unconditional emancipation, it was agreed,
+inasmuch as Lundy adhered to the methods of gradual emancipation, that
+each should sign his own editorials.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Todd, a Newburyport merchant, having allowed his ship to be used in
+the inter-state slave trade between Baltimore and New Orleans, Mr.
+Garrison faithfully denounced in unmeasured terms his fellow-townsman,
+and asserted the equal wickedness of the domestic slave trade with that
+of the foreign traffic, which, at that time, was in the law considered
+piracy. Arrested, tried, and convicted of libel, although the facts were
+proven, Garrison was incarcerated in the Baltimore jail, April 17, 1830,
+in default of a fine of $50 with $50 costs. Undaunted in his captivity,
+he continued to write his protest against slavery and to record in verse
+his feelings. His famous sonnet, "The Immortal Mind," was written with
+pencil upon the walls of his cell. Liberated at the expiration of
+forty-nine days, through the generosity of Arthur Tappan, of New York,
+who paid his fine, Garrison visited Boston and Newburyport, endeavoring
+to speak in both places, but the doors of halls and churches were closed
+against him. At last the hall used by a society of avowed infidels, in
+Boston, to whom Abner Kneeland preached, was opened to Mr. Garrison for
+three anti-slavery lectures, and among the audience at his first lecture
+were Samuel J. May, Samuel E. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page321" name="page321"></a>(p. 321)</span> Sewall, and A. Bronson Alcott,
+who then gave in their adhesion to the cause. Dr. Lyman Beecher was also
+present but made no sign.</p>
+
+<p>On January 1, 1831, appeared the first number of <i>The Liberator</i>, in
+Boston, bearing for its motto, "Our Country is the World&mdash;Our Countrymen
+are Mankind." Mr. Garrison, as editor, was assisted by Isaac Knapp, a
+fellow-printer from Newburyport, as publisher. The paper was issued at
+No. 6 Merchants' Hall, at the corner of Congress and Water Streets, in
+the third story, the partners making their home in the printing-office.
+It was this office that Harrison Gray Otis, the mayor, at the request of
+ex-Senator Hayne, ferreted out through his police, describing it as "an
+obscure hole," containing the editor and a negro boy, "his only visible
+auxiliary," while his supporters were "a very few insignificant persons
+of all colors." Lowell has thus described it in a different spirit:</p>
+
+<p class="poem30">
+  "In a small chamber, friendless and unseen,<br>
+<span class="add1em">Toiled o'er his types, one poor, unlearned young man;</span><br>
+   The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean,<br>
+<span class="add1em">Yet there the freedom of a race began."</span></p>
+
+<p>In the initial editorial appeared the famous declaration of Mr.
+Garrison, "I am in earnest&mdash;I will not equivocate&mdash;I will not excuse&mdash;I
+will not retreat a single inch&mdash;and I will be heard." Although its
+circulation was meagre, the publication of <i>The Liberator</i> made a
+tremendous sensation throughout the South, bringing upon its editor
+abusive and threatening language, and, at the North, unpopularity and
+persecution. The Legislature of Georgia offered a reward of $5,000 for
+his arrest and conviction.</p>
+
+<p>In 1832, the New England Anti-Slavery Society was organized in Boston,
+and the campaign for "immediate and unconditional emancipation" begun.
+The Colonization Society, which Mr. Garrison formerly supported but
+later denounced, became the object of special attack as an ally of the
+slave power, and, to counteract its designs, he sailed for England, May
+2, 1833, to expose its proslavery purposes to the English abolitionists.
+He was cordially received by Wilberforce, Buxton, Zachary, Macaulay,
+Daniel O'Connell, and their associates in the struggle for West India
+emancipation, and before he left the kingdom he witnessed the passage of
+the Emancipation Act, and was present at the funeral of Wilberforce, in
+Westminster Abbey. Returning from his successful mission abroad he
+narrowly escaped the hands of a New York mob on landing upon his native
+soil.</p>
+
+<p>In December, 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed, in
+Philadelphia, and Mr. Garrison drew up its famous Declaration of
+Sentiments, which numbered among its signers many of the men and women
+destined to be distinguished in the anti-slavery cause, among whom was
+the poet Whittier.</p>
+
+<p>On September 4, 1834, Mr. Garrison was married to Miss Helen Eliza
+Benson, of Brooklyn, Conn.; a fortunate and happy union.</p>
+
+<p>In 1835, the eminent English orator, George Thompson, came by invitation
+to the United States to assist in the emancipation of the American, as
+he had of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page322" name="page322"></a>(p. 322)</span> the West Indian, slave. The announcement that he
+would speak at a meeting of the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society, held in
+Boston, October 21st, of the same year, was the occasion of a mob
+composed of wealthy and respectable citizens of Boston who aimed to
+suppress free speech and tar and feather Mr. Thompson. He was, however,
+prevented from attending by his friends, but the fury of the mob fell
+upon Mr. Garrison, who was seized and led through the streets with a
+rope around his body, from which position he was rescued through the
+efforts of Mayor Lyman and imprisoned for safety in the Leverett Street
+jail. This outrage created new friends and gave fresh impetus to the
+abolition movement.</p>
+
+<p>In 1840 Mr. Garrison again visited England as a delegate of the World's
+Anti-Slavery Convention in London, in which body, however, he declined
+to sit, because the women who were his fellow-delegates from America
+were excluded.</p>
+
+<p>Occupied continuously with the care of <i>The Liberator</i> and in lecturing,
+Mr. Garrison led an intensely active life, not confining himself alone
+to the anti-slavery reform but embracing among other reforms those of
+temperance, non-resistance, women's rights, and religious freedom. For,
+while educated by his mother in the strict tenets of the Baptist faith,
+he early experienced a change of theological views and cast off
+sectarian bonds. <i>The Liberator</i> was used for the expression of his
+individual beliefs and was not the organ of any society.</p>
+
+<p>In 1846, the Free Church of Scotland having sent emissaries to the
+United States to collect funds from the slaveholders, Mr. Garrison again
+went to England to urge the Church to return the money thus contributed,
+and, in company with George Thompson, Frederick Douglass, Henry C.
+Wright and others, agitated the question throughout Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>Convinced that the constitutional compact of the North with the South to
+guard and protect slavery was immoral and unjust, in 1843 Mr. Garrison
+raised the banner of No Union with Slave-Holders, and advocated the
+dissolution of the Union for the sake of freedom, a step which added
+fresh fuel to the flames of persecution and incurred the loss of many
+lukewarm adherents.</p>
+
+<p>In 1850, the apostasy of Daniel Webster and the passage of the Fugitive
+Slave Law increased the national ferment. The same year witnessed the
+famous Rynder's mob, in New York, and the anti-slavery meeting at the
+Tabernacle, at which Mr. Garrison spoke, was violently broken up.</p>
+
+<p>The abolition movement had now assumed formidable proportions,
+dominating the national parties and dictating issues. The Whig party
+fell to pieces in consequence, and to it succeeded the Republican party,
+with Sumner, Seward, Wilson, Giddings, and other earnest men as leaders.
+Meanwhile Harriet Beecher Stowe, by her famous novel, "Uncle Tom's
+Cabin," had given a vivid picture of the wrongs of American slavery to
+the world. The "irrepressible conflict" was now rapidly tending to its
+crisis, and, on the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency by the
+Republican party, in 1860, the signal for civil war was given, and, in
+1861, the struggle of arms inaugurated by the attack on Fort Sumter
+replaced the peaceful crusade of the abolitionists.</p>
+
+<p>The moral agitation of thirty years had produced its legitimate results,
+and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page323" name="page323"></a>(p. 323)</span> when, in 1863, the President promulgated the emancipation
+proclamation the anti-slavery chapter was closed. The Union, which
+heretofore had been paramount to liberty, was now subordinated to it,
+and Mr. Garrison's antagonism necessarily ceased with the new amendment
+to the Constitution. He had been accustomed to denounce that instrument
+as a "covenant with death and an agreement with hell," but, as he
+expressed it, he had "never expected to see Death and Hell secede."
+Foreseeing the inevitable consequence of the war, he gave heartily his
+moral support to the Government in the struggle between it and the slave
+power. His non-resistance principles and abhorrence of war in no way
+diminished his interest in the great conflict, and his sympathies of
+necessity were with the soldiers of freedom. His eldest son, George
+Thompson Garrison, not sharing his father's scruples, enlisted in the
+Fifty-fifth Colored Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, attaining the
+rank of captain.</p>
+
+<p>The renomination of Lincoln for a second term, in 1864, developed a
+breach in the ranks of the old abolitionists, Mr. Garrison and his
+adherents supporting Lincoln, and others, under the lead of Wendell
+Phillips, advocating the choice of General Frémont. The latter
+candidate, however, withdrew from the field before the election.</p>
+
+<p>In April, 1865, Mr. Garrison, with his English friend George Thompson,
+was invited by the Government to be present as its guest at the ceremony
+of raising the Stars and Stripes above the surrendered Fort Sumter, and
+was received at Charleston with great enthusiasm by the emancipated
+slaves. The news of President Lincoln's assassination hastened the
+return of the party to the North.</p>
+
+<p>The practical extermination of the slave system by the adoption of the
+13th Amendment convinced Mr. Garrison that the purpose of the
+Anti-Slavery Society and of <i>The Liberator</i> had been accomplished. He
+therefore withdrew from one and discontinued the other. After
+thirty-five years of a stormy and precarious existence the last number
+of <i>The Liberator</i> was issued December 29, 1865. "Nothing could have
+been more in keeping with the uniform wisdom of your anti-slavery
+leadership than the time you chose for resigning it," wrote Lowell to
+Mr. Garrison a year later.</p>
+
+<p>The recognition of the pioneer's unselfish service thereupon took shape
+in a national testimonial reaching a sum exceeding thirty thousand
+dollars, thenceforth lifting his life above the pecuniary cares which
+had so long weighed upon it. A domestic grief in the shape of a
+paralytic shock to his faithful wife occurred in December, 1863,
+compelling a change of home from the city to an attractive suburban
+house in Roxbury, known as Rockledge.</p>
+
+<p>Although his great life-work was finished, Mr. Garrison abated no
+activity in the various reforms in which he had enlisted. Both with
+voice and pen he reached a wider and more attentive public, pleading for
+justice to the freedman, for the legal emancipation of women, the right
+of the Chinese to free immigration and Christian treatment, freedom of
+trade (for he early eschewed his youthful belief in the protective
+system), and for kindred causes.</p>
+
+<p>Visiting England for the fourth time in 1867, a public breakfast was
+given in <span class="pagenum"><a id="page324" name="page324"></a>(p. 324)</span> Mr. Garrison's honor at St. James's Hall, June 29th.
+John Bright presided, and among the addresses of welcome were those of
+Earl Russell, the Duke of Argyll, John Stuart Mill, George Thompson, and
+W. Vernon Harcourt. Later the freedom of the city of Edinburgh was
+conferred upon the American abolitionist, and in August he attended the
+International Anti-Slavery Conference at Paris, representing the
+American Freedman's Union Commission, and meeting Laboulaye, Cochin, and
+other eminent Frenchmen.</p>
+
+<p>The troubled period of reconstruction, involving the defence of the
+freedmen's rights, found no more interested observer and participant
+than Mr. Garrison. The former hostile treatment which had been meted out
+to him by press and party was of the past, and, like Lincoln,</p>
+
+<p class="poem30">
+  "He heard the hisses change to cheers,<br>
+  The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise,<br>
+  And took both in the same unwavering mood."</p>
+
+<p>Unique among reformers, he received in life the reverence that usually
+reveals itself in post-mortem honors which indicate the late awakening
+of public consciousness and suggest the pathos of their delay.</p>
+
+<p>The felicities of domestic life were his in more than ordinary measure,
+and "honor, love, obedience, troops of friends," made his closing years
+as serene as his opening career had been stormy. Occasional ailments
+reminded him of advancing age, but his temperamental cheerfulness and
+faith in human progress never forsook him.</p>
+
+<p>The death of his dear wife, in 1876, was a visible blow to him, and in
+the next year, for physical and mental recuperation, he visited England
+again for the last time, with his son Francis, enjoying a delightful
+reunion with old friends and making new ones, as was his wont.</p>
+
+<p>In May, 1879, during a visit to his daughter in New York, he breathed
+his last on the 24th of the month, with all his children about him. He
+left four sons, named respectively, George Thompson, William Lloyd,
+Wendell Phillips, and Francis Jackson, and an only daughter, Helen
+Francis, the wife of Henry Villard. Two others, a daughter and a son,
+died at an early age.</p>
+
+<p>In 1885, Mr. Garrison's biography, written by his sons Wendell Phillips
+and Francis Jackson, was published by the Century Company, in four
+volumes, octavo. They contain not only the personal details of a famous
+career, but a careful history of the abolition struggle. To them the
+future historian must look for the most faithful picture of the
+anti-slavery times and their leader.</p>
+
+<p>A bronze statue of heroic size, executed by Olin L. Warner, of New York,
+representing Mr. Garrison in a sitting posture, was presented to the
+city of Boston by several eminent citizens, in 1886, and is placed on
+Commonwealth Avenue, opposite the Hotel Vendome.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Garrison's calm estimate of himself has been preserved and may fitly
+conclude this sketch:</p>
+
+<p>"The truth is, he who commences any reform which at last becomes one of
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page325" name="page325"></a>(p. 325)</span> transcendent importance and is crowned with victory, is always
+ill-judged and unfairly estimated. At the outset he is looked upon with
+contempt, and treated in the most opprobrious manner, as a wild fanatic
+or a dangerous disorganizer. In due time the cause grows and advances to
+its sure triumph; and in proportion as it nears the goal, the popular
+estimate of his character changes, till finally excessive panegyric is
+substituted for outrageous abuse. The praise, on the one hand, and the
+defamation on the other, are equally unmerited. In the clear light of
+reason, it will be seen that he simply stood up to discharge a duty
+which he owed to his God, to his fellow-men, to the land of his
+nativity."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig009" name="sig009"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig009.jpg" width="300" height="44" alt="Author signature. William Lloyd Garrison." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>ELISHA KENT KANE<a id="footnotetag15" name="footnotetag15"></a><a href="#footnote15" title="Go to footnote 15"><span class="small">[15]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">General A. W. Greely</span><br>
+
+(1820-1857)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img030" name="img030"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img030.jpg" width="250" height="281" alt="Elisha Kent Kane." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Elisha Kent Kane, son of Judge John K. Kane, was born in Philadelphia,
+February 3, 1820. In his youth he displayed those qualifications of
+ceaseless activity, daring adventure, and strong personal courage which
+characterized his mature manhood. Inclined to all efforts involving
+physical hardships and contact with nature, his early education was
+devoted to civil engineering and such natural sciences as chemistry,
+geography, geology, and mineralogy. Unfortunately, in his sixteenth
+year, chronic and functional heart disease developed, which
+intermittently affected him through life and deterred him from the
+profession of an engineer. Applying himself to medicine, he graduated
+therein in 1842 at the University of Pennsylvania, in the meantime
+having served as a resident physician of the Pennsylvania Hospital. His
+inaugural medical thesis, based on personal experiments and
+observations, gave him a reputation which augured professional <span class="pagenum"><a id="page326" name="page326"></a>(p. 326)</span>
+prominence. In 1843 he was appointed physician to the United States
+embassy to China, under Caleb Cushing, who was charged with the
+negotiation of a treaty with that country. At the way ports and during
+the tedious intervals of the treaty negotiations, Kane lost no
+opportunity of travel and adventure. With Baron Löe he visited the
+Philippine Islands and the volcano of Tael. Not content with the usual
+point of view, and despite the protestations of the native guides, he
+was lowered two hundred feet in the crater, whence he scrambled downward
+to the smoking sulphur lake and dipped his specimen bottles into its
+steaming waters. In his ascent the loose, heated ashes charred his boots
+and gave way under his feet, the sulphur vapors nearly asphyxiated him,
+he fell repeatedly, and was barely able to tie the bamboo rope around
+him. Drawn up in an exhausted condition, and carried to a neighboring
+hermitage, he barely escaped violence at the hands of the offended
+natives, who considered his rash feat a sacrilege.</p>
+
+<p>Resigning his appointment with the legation, Kane established himself as
+a physician at Whampoa, on the Canton River, where illness shortly broke
+up his professional practice. Fortunately for his future fame he was
+unsuccessful in his application to the Spanish Government for permission
+to practise medicine at Manilla, and Kane returned to the United States
+by the way of Singapore, India, Egypt, and Europe, his journey marked by
+adventure and danger. In these, as in all other sea voyages, he suffered
+excessively from sea-sickness, which required all of his indomitable
+will to endure with equanimity.</p>
+
+<p>In 1846 he was commissioned assistant surgeon in the United States Navy;
+his first sea duty took him to the west coast of Africa, where coast
+fever invalided him within ten months. His desire for active service was
+so great that before his health was re-established he obtained orders
+from the Secretary of the Navy to proceed to head-quarters of the army,
+then in the City of Mexico, for duty in connection with the collection
+of data relative to field hospitals and surgical statistics. Here his
+activity and daring resulted in his being wounded in a guerilla
+skirmish.</p>
+
+<p>Assigned temporarily to a surveying vessel, circumstances soon
+determined Kane's career and gave full scope to his enthusiastic
+energies, and insured his future fame. The appeals of Lady Franklin, the
+recommendations of President Taylor, and the generosity of Henry
+Grinnell, had culminated in the organization of a search expedition for
+Franklin in the Arctic regions. It was provided that the vessels should
+be manned by volunteers from the Navy, and among those offering their
+services for this mission of humanity none was more importunate than
+Kane. Persistent efforts brought him orders for this fateful voyage
+while bathing in the tepid waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and ten days
+later he sailed from New York for the icy wastes of the North as surgeon
+of De Haven's flag-ship, the Advance. This search, known in Arctic
+history as the First Grinnell Expedition, was made under a joint
+resolution of the Congress of the United States, dated May 2, 1850, "to
+accept and attach to the Navy two vessels offered by Henry Grinnell,
+Esq., to be sent to the Arctic seas in search of Sir John <span class="pagenum"><a id="page327" name="page327"></a>(p. 327)</span>
+Franklin and his companions." Two very small sailing brigs constituted
+the fleet, the flag-ship Advance, commanded by De Haven, an officer of
+Antarctic experience under Wilkes, and the Rescue, under Master Griffin;
+the entire party numbered thirty-three officers and men.</p>
+
+<p>Their objective point was Lancaster Sound and its westward extension,
+Barrow Strait, whence either or both Wellington Channel and Cape Walker
+were to be visited. The squadron passed safely through Davis Strait, and
+skirting the dreaded land-ice of Melville Bay, reached Cape York after
+three weeks of constant and dangerous struggle with the heavy ice, which
+nearly destroyed the Rescue, borne almost on her beam-ends by the
+enormous pressure from a moving ice-pack. De Haven fell in with the
+English squadrons on the same errand, August 19, 1850, and, entering
+Lancaster Sound with his British consorts, devoted his energies to the
+search in hand. Griffin, of the Rescue, shared with Captain Ommaney, R.
+N., the honors of the discovery, at Beechy island, of the
+wintering-place of Franklin's squadron in 1845-46. Later three graves of
+members of Franklin's party were found, and numerous evidences of the
+good condition and activity of the expedition during that winter. About
+three weeks later, on September 10, 1850, De Haven concluded that the
+position attained was not sufficiently advantageous to justify his
+wintering, and so decided to return to the United States. Unfortunately,
+strong gales and very cold weather prevented immediate action, and in a
+few days both brigs were frozen immovably in an enormous ice-pack, where
+they were destined to drift helplessly to and fro at the mercy of the
+winds and currents for many months.</p>
+
+<p>Beset in Wellington Channel, to the north of Beechy Island, the American
+squadron first found itself drifting slowly, but with alarming
+steadiness, to the north, into waters and along coasts that had, as far
+as they then knew, never been visited. The drift carried the Advance to
+latitude 75° 25' north, longitude 91° 31' west, and on September 22d
+they discovered new land, to which De Haven gave the merited name of
+Grinnell. It proved to be an integral part of North Devon, of which it
+was the northwestern extension. Every few days there was a partial
+breaking up of the pack and consequent danger of destruction. On one
+occasion, says Kane: "We are lifted bodily eighteen inches out of water.
+The hummocks are reared up around the ship, so as to rise a couple of
+feet above our bulwarks, five feet above our deck. They are very often
+ten and twelve feet high, and threaten to overwhelm us. Add to this,
+darkness, snow, cold, and the absolute destitution of surrounding
+shores." The temperature fell below zero and the ships seemed destined
+to winter in Wellington Channel, but fortunately a strong northwest
+gale, in conjunction with heavy tides, disintegrated the main pack and
+set ships, ice and all, southward into Barrow Strait. Here they fell
+under the action of a southeasterly current and, drifting all winter,
+passed slowly through Lancaster Sound into Baffin Bay, where the opening
+polar summer found them yet fast in the ice, from which the two brigs
+were freed off Cape Walsingham, June 5, 1851, after drifting in eight
+and a half months a distance of ten hundred and fifty miles. It is
+impossible to adequately describe their physical discomforts <span class="pagenum"><a id="page328" name="page328"></a>(p. 328)</span>
+and dangers, the mental depression of the sunless midwinter of eight
+weeks, and the even harder experiences of the Arctic spring-tide, when
+excessive cold and increasing lassitude made steady inroads on their
+impaired constitutions. Kane tells us they were continually harassed by
+uncertainties as to their ultimate fate. Yesterday the unbroken floe,
+stretching as far as the eye could reach, seemed so firm and stable as
+to insure months of quiet, uninterrupted life. Today, the groaning,
+uneasy pack, yielding to an unseen power, split and cracked in all
+directions, throwing up huge masses of solid ice, that threatened to
+destroy instantly the ship, and occasionally opened in wide cracks
+through which rushed the open sea. Indeed, the conditions were so
+critical and the ice-movements so rapid, that the entire party, within
+the brief space of twenty-four hours, had four times made ready to
+abandon their vessels.</p>
+
+<p>In March the cold became intense, and for a week it averaged fifty-three
+degrees below the freezing-point. Scurvy assailed all but five of the
+crew, and De Haven was so ill that all his duties devolved on Griffin,
+who heroically bore up under disease and the mental and moral
+responsibilities that the situation forced on him. In all his efforts
+Griffin had no more effective coadjutor than the fleet-surgeon, Kane.
+Whether acting as a medical officer, treating skilfully the diseased
+crew; as a hunter, supplementing their scanty stock of anti-scorbutic
+food with the fresh meat of the seal; or as a man, devising means of
+amusement and stimulating them to mental and physical exertions, Kane
+incessantly displayed such qualities of cheerfulness, activity, and
+ingenuity as tended to dispel the pall of despair that sometimes
+enveloped the whole expedition.</p>
+
+<p>When release from the ice permitted the voyage to be renewed, De Haven
+decided to refit in the Greenland ports and again return to Lancaster
+Sound; fortunately, as the squadron was not fitted for a second year's
+work, the ice in Melville Bay was such as to prevent immediate passage,
+and so they turned southward, reaching the United States on September
+30, 1851.</p>
+
+<p>Such desperate experiences as those involved in the midwinter drift of
+the Advance, would have deterred most men for a time from a second
+voyage, but with Kane the stimulus to future work apparently increased
+with every league that he sailed southward. The ship was hardly in port
+before he initiated a plan for another expedition in the spring of 1852.
+This failing he wrote Lady Franklin in May, offering to go with Captain
+Penny, or any good sailing-master, to give his services without pay, and
+pledging himself to go to work and raise funds.</p>
+
+<p>Finding it impossible to go with any British expedition, he turned his
+entire efforts to organizing another from America. His chivalric
+enthusiasm enlisted the sympathies and active support of Henry Grinnell
+and George Peabody, the first loaning the ship and the latter
+contributing $10,000 for general expenses. The United States again
+aided, not only putting Kane on sea-pay, but also attached ten men of
+the Navy, under government pay. Instruments, provisions, etc., were
+likewise supplied by the Secretary of the Navy, and aid in other
+directions was afforded by the Smithsonian Institution, the Naval
+Observatory, and other scientific associations. At this juncture the
+discoveries of Captain Inglefield, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page329" name="page329"></a>(p. 329)</span> R. N., in Smith Sound,
+afforded to Kane a new route for his activities. The scheme, as far as
+the search for Franklin was concerned, was well-meaning, but none the
+less fallacious and illogical. Kane was personally cognizant of the fact
+that Franklin had gone into Lancaster Sound, and had wintered in 1845-46
+at Beechy Island, plainly following the direct and positive orders of
+the Admiralty, that he should push southward from Cape Walker to the
+neighborhood of Behring Strait. Moreover, the last mail ever received
+from the Franklin expedition contained a letter from Captain Fitz-James,
+in which he stated that Franklin had shown him the orders, expressed his
+disbelief in an open sea to the north, and had given "a pleasant account
+of his expectations of being able to get through the ice on the north
+coast of America."</p>
+
+<p>A search for Franklin by the way of Smith Sound, seventeen degrees of
+longitude and four degrees of latitude to the north and east of his last
+known position, was to assume not only that Franklin had disobeyed the
+strict letter of his instructions, but had also abandoned his voyage
+after having accomplished one-third of the distance from Greenland to
+Behring Strait.</p>
+
+<p>As the initiator and inspirer of the expedition, Kane was the natural
+head of it, but there were difficulties in the way.</p>
+
+<p>The assignment of a surgeon to the command of a naval expedition was
+unprecedented; but somehow Kane succeeded in overcoming even the
+time-honored observances of the Navy, and was placed in command by a
+formal order of the Secretary of the Navy in November, 1852.</p>
+
+<p>Kane repeatedly set forth his belief in an open Polar sea, and announced
+his expectation of reaching it. The expedition was not alone a proposed
+search for Franklin, but especially contemplated the continuation to the
+northward of the discoveries made in 1851 by Captain Inglefield, on the
+west coast of Greenland. Kane declared his intention of reaching "its
+most northern attainable point, and thence pressing on toward the Pole
+as far as boats or sleds could carry us, examine the coast lines for
+vestiges of the lost party," and "seeking the <i>open sea</i> ... launch our
+little boats, and embark upon its waters."</p>
+
+<p>On May 30, 1853, the expedition left New York in the sailing brig
+Advance, there being seventeen members all told. The vessel was stanch,
+well-fitted, and suitable, the scientific instruments satisfactory, but
+the provisions were illy chosen for Arctic service, and the equipment in
+many respects inadequate or deficient. The Greenland ports supplied
+skin-clothing, dogs, and Eskimo dog-drivers; the latter being destined
+to play an important part in establishing harmonious relations with the
+Etah natives. On reaching Melville Bay, Kane decided to take the middle
+passage, direct through the dreaded pack&mdash;a most venturesome route for a
+sailing-vessel. Favored by an off-shore gale, the Advance escaped with
+the loss of a whaleboat, and emerged into the open sea near Cape York,
+known as the North Water. Stopped by the ice, Kane wisely decided to
+cache his metallic life-boat, filled with boat-stores, on Littleton
+Island, so as to secure his retreat, since, as he says: "My mind was
+made up from the first that we are to force our way to the north as far
+as the elements will let us." <span class="pagenum"><a id="page330" name="page330"></a>(p. 330)</span> The ice opening with the tide,
+Kane rounded Cape Hatherton and was now in Kane Sea; but the Advance was
+immediately driven into a cove for shelter. At the first opportunity
+sail was again made and a short distance gained to the east-northeast,
+when a violent gale nearly wrecked her. Repeated efforts to work the
+vessel to the eastward, along a lee coast, destroyed fittings and boat,
+and were so fruitful in danger that on August 26th seven out of his
+eight officers addressed Kane in writing, to the effect "that a further
+progress to the North was impossible, and [they] were in favor of
+returning southward to winter." Unfortunately, Kane was not "able
+conscientiously to take the same view," as such retreat would have left
+him in a less favorable situation to pursue his explorations. Two weeks
+longer the brig was warped to the east during high water, whenever she
+was not jammed by huge floes against the rugged coast; but at low water
+the brig grounded and was daily in danger of total destruction. Finally,
+on September 9th, she was put in winter-quarters in 78° 37' N., 71° 14'
+W., in Rensselaer Harbor, which, says Kane, "we were fated never to
+leave together&mdash;a long resting-place to her, for the same ice is round
+her still." Winter now advanced with startling rapidity and excessive
+severity; freezing temperatures now permanently obtained, the water-fowl
+were gone, and the scanty vegetation blighted. All were busy, some
+constructing a building for magnetic and meteorological observations,
+others making journeys along the eastern coast. Kane visited the high
+land adjoining Mary Minturn River, some fifty miles away, whence he
+could see Washington Land in the vicinity of Cape Constitution. Hayes
+and Wilson journeyed on the inland ice, while McGary with six others
+made three caches on the coast, the farthest being under the face of the
+largest of all Arctic glaciers, now known by the name of Humboldt. The
+winter proved to be unusually cold, the temperature, from December to
+March inclusive, averaging fifty-four degrees below the freezing-point
+of water. Most fortunately the men remained in health, but Kane grieved
+over the loss of his dogs, only a dozen surviving out of the original
+eighty.</p>
+
+<p>In this contingency Kane decided to put his men in the field, and after
+two weeks of excessive cold, the temperature averaging seventy-seven
+degrees below freezing, a party was sent out while the mercury was yet
+frozen. Their orders were to reach Washington Land, about one hundred
+miles distant across the sea-ice. It soon became evident to Brooks, the
+commander of the party, that the journey was impossible of execution,
+and after eight marches, in which less than forty miles were traversed,
+he turned back on March 29, 1854. The cold that day was intense, about
+ninety degrees below freezing, and the next morning four men were frozen
+so badly that they could not walk. Only four men were left for work. The
+distance to the brig was thirty miles, while the intervening ice was so
+rough that they could not drag their disabled comrades. Hickey
+volunteered to remain, while Sontag, Ohlsen, and Petersen should go to
+the brig for help. The three men finally reached the Advance, but they
+were so physically exhausted and in such mental condition that they
+could not even indicate in what direction they had left their comrades.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page331" name="page331"></a>(p. 331)</span> Kane appreciated the gravity of the situation and the necessity
+of prompt measures. A relief party was at once started, which Kane led
+himself, despite his impaired health, physical weakness, and general
+unfitness for such a desperate journey; as always, he spared not himself
+when danger threatened. Ohlsen, being the clearest-headed of the
+sledgemen, was put in a sleeping-bag and dragged on a sledge as a guide.</p>
+
+<p>Eighteen hours' travel were without tangible result; Kane fainted twice
+on the snow; his stoutest men were seized with trembling fits, and as
+yet no signs of the missing party. Fortunately Kane had taken the
+Eskimo, Hans Hendrik, whose keen eye discovered the track that led to
+the tent of the frozen men. They were alive, but crippled beyond the
+possibility of marching. The weather remained fine or all would have
+perished, and as it was, Hayes, the surgeon, in his report of their
+condition on reaching the brig, said: "I was startled by their ghastly
+appearance. When I hailed them they met me only with a vacant, wild
+stare. They were to a man delirious." Of the eight men only one returned
+sound; two shortly died, two others suffered amputations, and three
+escaped with temporary disabilities.</p>
+
+<p>Three weeks later, on April 26th, Kane set out on what, to use his own
+words, "was to be the crowning expedition of the campaign, to attain the
+Ultima Thule of the Greenland shore." Impressed with the
+impracticability of a direct journey across the main ice-pack, he
+decided to follow the shore-line, five men dragging a sledge, while Kane
+and Godfrey travelled by dog-team. He had been led by his resolute
+spirit to overestimate the physical strength of his men and himself, and
+the party broke down before it had even approached the Humboldt Glacier.
+Their enthusiastic leader was stricken with fainting spells and rigidity
+of limbs, but Kane would not admit his illness to be more than
+temporary, and bidding the men strap him on the sledge, proceeded
+onward. His diminished physical powers now became evident through the
+freezing of his rigid and swollen limbs. Delirious and fainting at the
+end of the march, he was carried in an almost insensible condition to
+his tent, when his men wisely took the matter in their own hands and
+started back for the brig. Nine days later, through forced marches and
+heroic efforts of his sledge-mates, themselves partially disabled, Kane
+was carried on board the Advance fluctuating between life and death.
+Hardly conscious, his mind clouded, and his swollen features barely
+recognizable, his general condition was such that the surgeon regarded
+his ultimate recovery as nearly hopeless.</p>
+
+<p>While Kane's recuperative powers were simply marvellous, yet he did not
+recover sufficiently to make another journey that spring. In this
+extremity he turned to his surgeon, Israel I. Hayes, who volunteered to
+explore the unknown shores of Grinnell Land, which lay in sight to the
+west of Smith Sound. With the seaman Godfrey as a companion and a
+dog-team as the means of transportation, Hayes struggled through the
+almost impassable floes and bergs of the main strait and finally
+attained Cape Hayes, on the western coast, in about 79° 45' N. latitude.
+The return journey to the Advance was possible only by abandoning
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page332" name="page332"></a>(p. 332)</span> everything that in the slightest degree impeded the progress
+of the exhausted men and famishing dogs.</p>
+
+<p>This success caused Kane to make one more effort to reach the hitherto
+inaccessible Washington Land, and for this purpose he placed all his
+means at the disposal of one of his seamen, William Morton. A supporting
+party accompanied Morton to Humboldt Glacier, whence he proceeded with
+Eskimo Hans Hendrik and a dog-team on the advance journey. Their track
+lay over the sea-ice, about five miles from, and parallel with, the face
+of the glacier. Five days took them to the new land to the north, and
+three days later, June 24, 1854, Morton reached alone an impassable
+headland, Cape Constitution. From the highest attainable elevation
+Morton found his view completely cut off to the northeast, but between
+the west and north he could see the southeastern half of Kennedy's
+Channel as far north as Mount Ross, 80° 58' N. He says "Not a speck of
+ice was to be seen as far as I could observe; the sea was open, the
+swell came from the northward ... and the surf broke in on the rocks
+below in regular breakers." Morton described accurately the general
+landscape, but he was an incompetent astronomical observer, and his
+estimates of distances were excessive. The farthest point was charted
+nearly a hundred miles north of its true position, while Cape
+Constitution was placed 31 miles too far north by Morton and 52
+geographic miles by Kane, who "corrected" Morton's observations by a
+series of erroneous bearings. Morton's general account of his
+explorations has been confirmed by Hans Hendrik in his Memoir written
+some years since in Eskimo.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime the Etah Eskimo, natives of Prudhoe land, had discovered
+the brig, and through the interpreter, Hans Hendrik, promptly
+established friendly relations with Kane. It may be said that the
+expedition owed its final safety to these natives; their supplies of
+fresh meat checked scurvy, and later their dog teams rendered retreat
+possible. Slight misunderstandings, not always the fault of the natives,
+naturally occurred, but the Eskimo were honest, humane, and willing, and
+never committed a hostile act.</p>
+
+<p>The summer of 1854 justified the expressed fears of Kane's officers, for
+it passed with the ice yet unbroken in Rensselaer Harbor. It was evident
+in July that the brig would never be freed from the ice, and in this
+critical situation, Kane, taking five men in a whaleboat, attempted to
+reach Beechy Island, several hundred miles to the southwest, whence he
+expected to obtain succor from the English searching squadron. The
+unfavorable condition of the ice in Smith Sound caused the failure of
+this attempt, and, yet worse, encouraged the idea of dividing the party;
+an idea that culminated in the well-known "Arctic Boat Journey," as Dr.
+Hayes termed it. Despite Kane's futile experiences in July, the majority
+of the party maintained that a boat journey to Upernavik was both
+practicable and advisable. Confronted by this attitude of the
+expeditionary force, Kane assembled them, set forth the dangers of such
+an attempt, and vehemently urged them to abandon the project, which the
+lateness of the season and the unfavorable ice conditions rendered most
+improbable of success. Finally he granted the privilege of unfettered
+action to such as believed the journey practicable, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page333" name="page333"></a>(p. 333)</span>
+stipulating only that those leaving the vessel should renounce, in
+writing, all claims upon the expedition and should elect a leader. Nine
+elected to go, eight to remain. Kane displayed a magnanimous spirit,
+equipping them most liberally, and assuring them, in writing, that the
+brig should be ever open should disaster overtake them. The boat journey
+was a failure, and Kane bade them welcome when, early in December, he
+learned that the party, some two hundred miles distant and in imminent
+danger of perishing by starvation, was desirous of returning to the
+Advance. Kane promptly sent supplies to the suffering men, and, on
+December 12th, the entire crew was once again upon the brig.</p>
+
+<p>The winter of 1854-5 passed wretchedly; the physical condition of the
+party steadily deteriorated; failing fuel necessitated the burning of
+the upper woodwork of the brig; their food was reduced to ordinary
+marine stores, and game failed equally to the hunters of the Advance and
+the persistent efforts of the Etah natives on the ice-clad land and in
+the frozen sea. In addition scurvy attacked the crew; Hayes lost a
+portion of his frozen foot, and hardly a man of the crew remained fit
+for duty. The necessity of abandoning the brig and retreating by boat to
+Upernavik, Danish Greenland, was now forced upon Kane's mind. The
+co-operation of the natives greatly facilitated, if it did not alone
+render possible, the transportation of their provisions, boats, and
+stores to Cape Alexander. Kane says the Eskimo "brought daily supplies
+of birds, assisted in carrying boat stores, and invariably exhibited the
+kindest feelings and strictest honesty."</p>
+
+<p>Bidding farewell to the natives at Cape Alexander on June 15, 1855, Cape
+York was passed, the land ice of Melville Bay followed, and the northern
+coast of Danish Greenland reached in forty-seven days. In the meantime a
+relief squadron under command of Lieutenant Hartstene, United States
+Navy, had visited Smith Sound, where the natives informed him of Kane's
+journey southward. Taken on board the returning flag-ship at Disco, Kane
+and his men reached New York, October 11, 1855.</p>
+
+<p>Kane had hardly reached home when it became evident that his undermined
+constitution could not longer withstand the inroads of a disease which
+for twenty years had afflicted him. Change of climate was tried without
+avail, and he died at Havana, Cuba, February 16, 1857, at the early age
+of thirty-seven.</p>
+
+<p>Between his first and second voyages Kane had become deeply interested
+in Margaretta Fox, one of the well-known spiritualists, who later
+published their correspondence under the title of "The Love Life of Dr.
+Kane." Their relations, it is believed, resulted in a secret marriage
+shortly before Kane's death.</p>
+
+<p>The rare literary skill shown in the account of Kane's expedition has
+charmed millions of readers with its graphic account of the labors,
+hardships, and privations of Kane and his men. It should not, however,
+be considered that this expedition merits attention alone from its tales
+of suffering and bravery, for none other of that generation contributed
+so materially to a correct knowledge of the Arctic regions. In ethnology
+it gave the first full account of the Etah Eskimo, the northernmost
+inhabitants of the world; in natural history its data as to the flora
+and fauna of the isolated and ice-surrounded extremity of western
+Greenland <span class="pagenum"><a id="page334" name="page334"></a>(p. 334)</span> were original, and have been to this day but
+scantily supplemented; in physical sciences, the magnetic, tidal, and
+climatic observations remained for twenty years the most important
+series pertaining to the Arctic regions. Kane's voyage not only extended
+geographically Inglefield's discoveries a hundred miles to the
+northward, but it also opened up a practical and safe route for Arctic
+exploration, which has been more fruitful of successful results than any
+other.</p>
+
+<p>Kane was a man of generous impulses, enthusiastic ideals, and kindly
+heart. His chivalric nature, indomitable will, and great courage often
+impelled him to hazardous enterprises; but he stands out in this modern
+age as an unselfish character, willing to brave hardships and risk his
+own life on a vague possibility of rescuing Franklin and his companions.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig010" name="sig010"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig010.jpg" width="250" height="104" alt="Author signature. A. W. Greely." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>FERDINAND DE LESSEPS<a id="footnotetag16" name="footnotetag16"></a><a href="#footnote16" title="Go to footnote 16"><span class="small">[16]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Clarence Cook</span><br>
+
+(1805-1894)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img031" name="img031"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img031.jpg" width="250" height="266" alt="Ferdinand de Lesseps." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>If, as Dante sings: "There is no greater grief than in a time of misery
+to remember happier days," there are few persons in our time who can
+testify more feelingly to the truth of the poet's words than Ferdinand
+de Lesseps. For many years he was a bright-shining, sympathetic figure
+among those who lead in the van of our material progress; and the
+accomplishment, by his initiative and energy, of the long dream of the
+Suez Canal, made him the hero, not of his own nation alone, but of all
+the civilized world; honors were heaped upon him, and acclamations
+greeted him on every side. His name became a household word.</p>
+
+<p>A few years later, and all is changed. At the advanced age of
+eighty-eight, Ferdinand de Lesseps is in deep disgrace. Charged with the
+chief responsibility for the ruin brought about by the failure of
+another of his great enterprises&mdash;the Panama Canal&mdash;he has been
+condemned by the tribunal to pay a huge fine, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page335" name="page335"></a>(p. 335)</span> has only
+been saved from the shame of actual imprisonment by the knowledge of his
+judges that, in his feeble state of health, imprisonment would speedily
+be fatal. As at the ceremonies on the occasion of the opening of the
+Suez Canal, De Lesseps was compared to Columbus, the opener of a way to
+the new world, so we may see the close of the great discoverer's career
+reflected in the tragic ending of the splendid fortunes of De Lesseps.</p>
+
+<p>Ferdinand de Lesseps was the son of a French gentleman who, fifty years
+since, was in the Consular service of France in Egypt. He was born at
+Versailles in 1805, and after receiving the usual education given to
+youth of his class, he was early inducted into the mysteries of
+diplomatic life, where his father's services and influence naturally
+opened a way for him. In 1833, when twenty-eight, he was made consul at
+Cairo, and remained at that post for over ten years, during which time
+he laid the foundations for that knowledge of all matters connected with
+Egyptian affairs which was to prove so valuable to him and to the world
+a few years later.</p>
+
+<p>In 1842, De Lesseps was transferred from Cairo to Spain, and was made
+consul at Barcelona. Spain was at this time much disturbed by factional
+quarrels and jealousies, partly due to disputed claims to the succession
+to the throne, and partly to the angry rivalries of political leaders,
+each eager to save the country by his particular nostrum. In the
+dynastic struggle, Queen Christina, made regent after the death of her
+husband, Ferdinand VII., had been exiled to France, and General
+Espartero, who at first had stood for her cause, now ruled as regent in
+her place. In 1843, the year after the arrival of De Lesseps, the city
+of Barcelona, which in common with many other places had refused to
+support Espartero, openly revolted, and was besieged and bombarded by
+his forces; and in the course of the siege, which brought great misery
+upon the inhabitants, De Lesseps did so many humane and generous acts at
+great personal risk, that he was rewarded by honors from the governments
+of several nations whose subjects had been protected by him in his
+official capacity.</p>
+
+<p>It was natural that after this proof of his abilities, De Lesseps should
+be advanced to a still higher position, and in the spring of 1848 he was
+made minister to Madrid. This place he held, however, only until
+February, 1849, for in May of that year he was sent to Rome to patch up
+a peace between the popular party and the French army of occupation.
+This proved an unfortunate venture. De Lesseps was recalled to France in
+disgrace, in June of the same year, for having shown too great a
+sympathy for the party of Mazzini, which aimed to establish a Roman
+Republic.</p>
+
+<p>It may be conjectured that the disappointment of De Lesseps at this
+abrupt ending of his diplomatic career was not very great. He had not
+been drawn to the profession by natural inclination, but had inherited
+it, so to speak, from his father, as another man might inherit the
+profession of law or medicine, or as the son of a mechanic might inherit
+his father's trade. His ambition and tastes both led him in a different
+direction; he would play a more active, a more striking part in the
+affairs of his time.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page336" name="page336"></a>(p. 336)</span> During the period of his residence in Egypt, as consul for
+France, he must often have heard the project of a canal across the
+Isthmus of Suez discussed, since the course of events was every year
+making the necessity of the undertaking more evident. As is well known,
+the idea of such a canal was not a new one: Herodotus speaks of a canal
+designed and partly excavated by Pharaoh Necho in the seventh century
+before Christ, to connect the city of Bubastis, in the Delta of the
+Nile, with the Red Sea. As planned, the canal was to be ten feet deep
+with a width sufficient for two triremes to pass abreast, and it was
+expected that the voyage would be accomplished in four days. After the
+lives of 126,000 Egyptian workmen had been sacrificed to the hardships
+of the undertaking, Herodotus says that Necho, alarmed at the
+difficulties and expense, consulted the Oracle as to what was best for
+him to do, and received the answer: "Thou art working for barbarians."
+The Egyptians, like the Greeks, considered all foreigners as barbarians,
+and the answer simply reflected the sentiment of the people, or of their
+leaders, that this vast expenditure of labor, time, and money would
+prove to be, after all, as much for the benefit of foreigners as for
+themselves. The Oracle gave a voice to national and political
+prejudices, such as even in our own time are continually evoked to block
+the wheels of great enterprises. Necho, we are told, heeded the warning
+of the Oracle and abandoned the enterprise, but about one hundred years
+later, in the time of Darius Hystaspes, work on the canal was resumed
+and the undertaking was completed. From time to time we find mention
+made of the canal by later authors, but about the end of the eighth
+century of our era it was finally abandoned and left to be blocked up by
+the sand.</p>
+
+<p>The project was revived by Napoleon I. at the time of his Egyptian
+expedition; but, on the report of his engineer, M. Lepère, now known to
+be mistaken, that the Red Sea level was thirty feet higher than that of
+the Mediterranean, nothing further was done; nor was it until so late as
+1847 that it was again taken up and an attempt made to interest the
+maritime powers of Europe in the scheme; but nothing serious was
+accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>In truth, the idea of a canal uniting the two seas, had up to this time
+been largely sentimental, if we may so express it; rather connected with
+vast schemes of conquest than founded on the vital needs of commercial
+development and the material good of the people. The commerce of the
+Mediterranean countries with India and the remoter East had not in those
+earlier times reached a point where such a costly undertaking as the
+Suez Canal could prove remunerative; what trade there was could be
+sufficiently and more cheaply accommodated by the Overland machinery of
+caravans, while France, Spain, and England still found the route by the
+Cape to answer all their purposes. In fact it was more than doubtful
+whether sailing-vessels, by means of which trade was then chiefly
+carried on, or even steamers of the build then employed, could use the
+canal to profit. It was believed that the advantages promised by a
+shorter route would be counterbalanced by the delays and dangers
+reckoned inseparable from the navigation of so narrow a water-way.</p>
+
+<p>These objections, really of a serious nature, made it difficult to win
+over the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page337" name="page337"></a>(p. 337)</span> business world to a practical interest in the scheme.
+De Lesseps had been from the start the chief mover in the enterprise, to
+which he had given many years of his time, and he was not a man to be
+discouraged by repeated failures to bring others to his own way of
+thinking. His long experience, besides, in the ways of diplomacy had
+prepared him for delays and obstructions; but the time came, at last,
+when his enthusiasm, his confidence in himself, and his skill in dealing
+with men were to bring about the realization of his hopes.</p>
+
+<p>Five years, from 1849 to 1854, had been occupied by De Lesseps in
+negotiations with governments and bankers, but it was not until 1854
+that the event occurred which insured the success of his great
+undertaking. In that year, Mahomet Saïd Pasha became Viceroy of Egypt,
+and no sooner was he seated than he sent for De Lesseps to consult with
+him as to the possibility of carrying out the project of the canal. In
+November of the same year, a commission was signed at Cairo by the
+Viceroy charging De Lesseps with the formation of a company to be named
+the United Suez Canal Company, with a capital of two hundred million
+francs, afterward raised to three hundred million. From this time the
+affairs of the canal went on with comparative smoothness, and by 1858
+the money necessary for the work had been pledged; one-half the loan was
+placed on the continent, chiefly in Paris, the other half was taken by
+the Viceroy.</p>
+
+<p>Actual work on the canal was begun in 1858 and such rapid progress was
+made that it was completed in the autumn of 1869, and opened to the
+commerce of the world with magnificent ceremonies, lasting for several
+days. Religious ceremonies, in which priests of the Catholic Church, the
+Greek Church, and the Moslem faith united, were followed by a naval
+parade representing the European powers and the United States, and the
+whole concluded with a brilliant series of fêtes and entertainments at
+Cairo. As the originator of the canal, De Lesseps, was a Frenchman, and
+as France had been the chief promoter of the enterprise, the place of
+honor at these ceremonies was naturally given to the Empress Eugénie,
+who went to Cairo as the representative of the French nation; while to
+De Lesseps, as naturally, was given the next place, a position which he
+filled with equal dignity and modesty, winning "golden opinions from all
+sorts of people."</p>
+
+<p>The Suez Canal, though a vast and important undertaking, presented
+almost no engineering difficulties to be overcome. At Port Saïd, the
+Mediterranean entrance to the canal, two great piers, to serve as
+breakwaters, were built of artificial stone, projecting into the sea;
+the western, a distance of 6,940 feet, the eastern 6,020 feet, and
+enclosing an area of 450 acres; thus providing a safe and commodious
+harbor. At Suez, the Red Sea terminus of the canal, a less formidable
+defense was needed; but the necessary docks and buildings called for a
+considerable outlay.</p>
+
+<p>From Port Saïd to Suez the land is almost a dead level; the few
+sand-dunes that break the monotonous uniformity of the isthmus nowhere
+reach a greater height than fifty or sixty feet. Along the middle line
+of the isthmus there was a series of depressions; some shallow, and
+others, the bottoms of which were <span class="pagenum"><a id="page338" name="page338"></a>(p. 338)</span> lower than the level of the
+sea. Although these depressions were at all times dry, yet they were
+called "lakes," and as such figure on the maps, where we read the names
+"Lake Timsah," "The Bitter Lakes" and others. They were found to be
+thickly incrusted with salt on the bottom and sides, indicating that at
+one time they had been filled with sea-water; it is indeed must probable
+that the whole isthmus was at a very remote period entirely submerged.
+In the construction of the canal these depressions were made to play a
+very important part. The line of the canal was carried directly through
+them; the shallower were brought to a sufficient depth by dredging; the
+deeper were simply filled with water and required nothing more for safe
+navigation than an indication of the channel by buoys. Thus, in the
+whole length of the canal, reckoned at 88 geographical miles, there are
+66 miles of actual digging; 14 miles of dredging through the lakes; and
+8 miles, where neither digging nor dredging was required.</p>
+
+<p>Water began to flow from the Mediterranean into the canal in February,
+1869, and from the Red Sea in July of the same year; and by October, the
+lakes, and the canal in its whole length, were filled with water
+navigable by vessels of the highest class. The water-way thus obtained
+has a width at the surface varying from 197 feet at deep cuttings, to
+225 feet at lower ground. The sides slope to a width at the bottom of 72
+feet, and an average depth of 26 feet is secured along the whole course.
+As the water is at one level from sea to sea, the canal is without
+obstruction of any kind. No locks, dams, or water-gates are required,
+and vessels enter the canal from either end and pursue their journey
+without interruption or detention.</p>
+
+<p>So great, however, was the eagerness of trade to take advantage of the
+new route, that the volume of traffic increased within a very short time
+after the opening of the canal to such an extent as to cause serious
+delays in the transit, and a number of schemes were brought forward for
+building other canals by which the two seas might be united. In the end,
+all these plans were abandoned, and it was decided to widen the canal
+sufficiently to enable it to meet the increased demand upon its carrying
+capacity. It may not be without interest to note the growth of traffic
+in the canal by a few figures. From 486 ships which passed through in
+1870, the number rose to 3,100 in 1886; while the receipts increased
+from $1,031,875 in 1870, to $11,541,090 in 1886. The canal, when
+completed, was found to have cost twenty million pounds sterling, a sum
+far in advance of the original estimate, but made necessary by the
+addition of several important items of expenditure that were not
+foreseen. One of these was the substitution of paid labor for the forced
+labor promised by the Pasha, but which was made impossible by public
+clamor. The Egyptian ruler discovered that he was not living in the
+times of the pyramid-building Pharaohs, when men were made
+beasts-of-burden. Another item not provided for was the necessity of
+supplying the 30,000 workmen employed on the canal with fresh water. For
+this purpose, a branch canal had to be dug, by which water could be
+brought from the Nile.</p>
+
+<a id="img032" name="img032"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img032.jpg" width="600" height="402" alt="" title="">
+<p>Cutting the Canal at Panama.</p></div>
+
+<p>The enterprise thus brought to a happy ending, has already proved of
+great service to the world. It must be looked upon not merely as a
+benefit to commerce, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page339" name="page339"></a>(p. 339)</span> but as one of the many powerful agents
+now at work binding the nations closer together. It is indissolubly
+connected with the name of De Lesseps, and had he been contented with
+the fortune and the reputation gained by his work in forwarding the
+canal, few names would have shone brighter in the list of those who have
+helped on man's material well-being. But in an evil hour he was
+persuaded to lend his support to the Panama Canal scheme, and along with
+the ruined fortunes and ruined reputations sunk in that abyss, the name
+and fortune of De Lesseps and his family have suffered irretrievable
+blight.</p>
+
+<p>The Panama Canal was not first proposed in our day; the scheme is as old
+as the discovery of the isthmus. "The early navigators," says J. C.
+Rodrigues, "could not help noticing how near to each other were the two
+oceans, and how comparatively easy would be (they thought) the cutting
+of a canal through that narrow strip of land between them. The
+celebrated Portuguese navigator Antonio Galväo, as early as 1550, wrote
+an essay on the subject wherein he suggested four different lines, one
+of which was through the Lake of Nicaragua, and another by the Isthmus
+of Panama." England, in 1779, was the first to make an attempt to
+control the river and lake communications, but her forces sent under
+Nelson to begin the work were driven away by the terrible fever that has
+thus far been the best defence of the isthmus from attack. Various
+schemes were entertained by other nations, but, although the United
+States kept a jealous eye upon its own interests in the enterprise, it
+was not until the discovery of gold in California that it saw a vital
+reason for insisting upon its paramount claims, and the outbreak of the
+Civil War, with its threats of European intervention, made an easier
+communication with the rising States of the Pacific Coast seem an
+absolute necessity. But we moved slowly and with vacillating steps. We
+were divided in opinion as to the best route to take, as to the sort of
+canal that was desirable, as to the advisability of building any canal.
+When the war was over, the rapid increase of railroad communication with
+the Pacific Coast made public opinion still more indifferent to the
+enterprise. Meanwhile the French had started with great energy a scheme
+for a canal at Panama, and De Lesseps had been induced to lend his name
+to the scheme, and to take an active part in carrying it out. For this
+purpose he visited the United States and used his best diplomatic arts
+to induce our Government to unite with him in his plans. But he could do
+nothing on this side the water and returned to France to fight the
+battle alone. There the interest in the scheme, artificially excited by
+speculators and still further aided by the efforts of De Lesseps and his
+friends, increased to such an extent as to swamp all considerations of
+prudence. The name of De Lesseps, consecrated by the brilliant success
+of Suez, proved to be a powerful charm. Thousands and tens of thousands
+of people in the cities and in the country put the hard-earned savings
+of years into the venture; senators, deputies, men of high social rank
+in public life, shamelessly sold their votes and their voices to secure
+the moral aid and the money of the state to aid their gambling
+enterprise, and the newspaper press of Paris, at all times venal,
+betrayed for bribes the trust that was reposed in it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page340" name="page340"></a>(p. 340)</span> Such a state of things could not last forever. The end, long
+prophesied, came at last; the exposure was complete, and the whole
+stupendous scheme of fraud was unmasked. Something might have been saved
+from the wreck had the canal itself been a real thing so far as it had
+gone, a practical enterprise, sure in time to pay its investors and
+serve the public. But it was found that everything connected with the
+construction of the canal had been grossly misrepresented; the estimates
+of expense; the reports of the engineering difficulties to be overcome;
+the dangers from the climate; the bills of mortality; everything, in
+short, was enveloped in a cloud of lies. So great was the shock to
+public confidence that followed this exposure, that for a time the
+Republic itself seemed in danger of overthrow. The eyes of the world
+were fixed upon De Lesseps and his son Charles as the chief authors of
+the mischief, and when the crisis was passed, and the smoke of the
+upheaval had passed away, the Panama Canal was seen to be a ruined
+enterprise, and buried deep underneath it was the once-honored name of
+Ferdinand De Lesseps.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig011" name="sig011"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig011.jpg" width="300" height="79" alt="Author signature. Clarence Cook." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>GENERAL JOHN C. FRÉMONT<a id="footnotetag17" name="footnotetag17"></a><a href="#footnote17" title="Go to footnote 17"><span class="small">[17]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Jane Marsh Parker</span><br>
+
+(1813-1890)</h3>
+
+<a id="img033" name="img033"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img033.jpg" width="250" height="334" alt="John C. Frémont." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>In these days of rapid transit between New York and San Francisco, of
+luxurious travel across desert and mountain, the story of John Charles
+Frémont, the Pathfinder of the great West, is of peculiar interest, a
+striking illustration that the history of the world is in the biography
+of its leaders, in the pathfinders of the unexplored.</p>
+
+<p>The stormy tide of the French Revolution sent the father of John Charles
+Frémont to the New World about the time, presumably, when Napoleon
+Bonaparte was in the height of power. This M. Frémont came of a good
+family living near Lyons, France. A British man-of-war made prize of the
+ship in which he sailed for San Domingo, and he was carried prisoner to
+one of the British West India islands, his captivity lasting several
+years. Upon gaining his liberty he stopped at Norfolk, Va., to refill an
+empty purse as a teacher of French, and there met Anne Beverly Whiting,
+a leading belle of an old Virginia family, who became his wife. One of
+the illustrious connections of the Whitings was that with the family
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page341" name="page341"></a>(p. 341)</span> of George Washington. M. Frémont's marked fondness for travel
+and adventure was shared by his wife. They took long journeys through
+the wild southern country, stopping at Indian villages, often sleeping
+by camp-fires. On one of these expeditions, when making a halt at
+Savannah, Ga., John Charles, their first child, was born, January 21,
+1813. M. Frémont died a few years after.</p>
+
+<p>The boyhood of John Charles was spent in Charleston. It is well to
+remember, in a study of his life, his French blood and early southern
+environment. His first choice of a profession was the law. At the age of
+fourteen he became a student in the office of John W. Mitchell, who
+placed him under a private tutor, Dr. Roberton, who understood the lad
+thoroughly and developed his character in the right direction. Dr.
+Roberton seems to have first discovered what was made plain in Frémont's
+after-life&mdash;the makings of a poet, and the foresight of a prophet.
+Translating the story of the battle of Marathon in the Greek class,
+young Frémont catches the spirit with which it was told by Herodotus,
+and writes verses in protest of tyranny which are published in one of
+the Charleston papers. "In one year," wrote his tutor, "he had read four
+books of Cæsar; Cornelius Nepos; Sallust; six books of Virgil; nearly
+all of Horace, and two books of Livy. In Greek&mdash;all of Græca Minora,
+about half of the first volume of Græca Majora, and four books of the
+Iliad." At fifteen he enters the junior class of Charleston College. At
+sixteen he is confirmed in the Episcopal Church, entertaining at that
+time thoughts of entering the ministry. His steady progress is
+interrupted by his first love affair; his absorbing passion so gets the
+better of his common sense, that he neglects his books and classes and
+is expelled from college. We next find him teaching higher mathematics,
+acting as private tutor, and devoting his evenings to the charge of the
+<i>Apprentice's Library</i>, a school in Charleston. At twenty years of age
+he received the appointment of teacher of mathematics, and his long
+connection with the United States Army had its beginning; his post the
+sloop of war Natchez. He was to go on a cruise of two years and more
+along the coast of South America. Here was a chance for him to unfit
+himself for further advancement, but he improved his time upon the
+cruise to the utmost, and his diligent scholarship won for him the
+double degree of bachelor and master of arts from the college from which
+he had been expelled. His application for a mathematical professorship
+in the Navy resulted in his passing the severe examination, and in an
+appointment to the frigate Independence. He declined the office,
+however, having decided to become an engineer, to join Captain
+Williams's survey of the mountain passes between South Carolina and
+Tennessee. There was talk of a railroad between Charleston and
+Cincinnati in those days.</p>
+
+<p>That was Frémont's first experience in exploring expeditions. The corps
+lived chiefly in camp. The survey was in wild mountainous regions of the
+unexplored South, among Indians sullen against the Government. Frémont
+liked this kind of a life. He enlisted under Captain Williams the second
+time in 1837, as assistant engineer, going with him upon a military
+reconnoissance of the Cherokee country in Georgia, North Carolina, and
+Tennessee. A war cloud was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page342" name="page342"></a>(p. 342)</span> rising; the peril of the expedition
+was its charm to Frémont. "St. Louis was then on the border of an
+immense and almost unexplored Indian country. The caravans of
+merchandise going through it to Santa Fé, ran all the risks you can read
+of among Bedouins in the desert; the hunters and trappers, as well as
+the merchants, started off into the unknown with only one certainty,
+that danger was there; and when they came back&mdash;if they ever did&mdash;it was
+as from underworld."<a id="footnotetag18" name="footnotetag18"></a><a href="#footnote18" title="Go to footnote 18"><span class="small">[18]</span></a></p>
+
+<p>About this time a distinguished French geographer, M. Nicollet, was sent
+to this country by France to explore the sources of the Mississippi, "in
+the interests of geography." The United States were also interested in
+the geography of the almost unknown Northwest. M. Nicollet was appointed
+to make explorations for the United States, and Frémont was honored with
+the position of principal assistant. It was high time that something
+should be done in the interests of a geography made up largely from
+travellers' tales. That there was a great river, the Buena Ventura,
+running from the base of the Rocky Mountains to the Bay of San
+Francisco, nobody doubted, for there it was upon the map. The
+exploration of M. Nicollet, assisted by Frémont, awakened great
+interest. They were absent two years; their field, the territory between
+the Missouri and the upper rivers, as far north as the British line.
+Their report was awaited with impatience. Frémont came home to find that
+he had been appointed second lieutenant of the United States
+Topographical Engineers. As a scientific explorer his fame was
+established. The year following his return he spent in Washington with
+M. Nicollet, preparing his report for publication. Among those most
+deeply interested was Senator Benton, of Missouri, "Tom Benton," as he
+was popularly called, and "Old Bullion." Benton's hobby was the opening
+of a road for immigrants to the Pacific coast, as a necessary step to
+the acquisition of the territory held by Mexico&mdash;the California of
+to-day. Senator Benton's interest in the report of the young engineer,
+then about twenty-seven years of age, was surpassed by the young
+engineer's interest in the senator's daughter, Jessie, then only
+fifteen, an interest which ended in a betrothal contrary to the wishes
+of older heads, owing to Miss Benton's youth and young Frémont's
+connection with the army. The young engineer received an unexpected and
+unwelcome order, sending him to the wild frontier of Iowa at once, where
+the Sacs and Foxes, it was thought by Senator Benton (who had a hand in
+his exile), might be made to help postpone the marriage, at least. But
+banishment and red-skins were of no avail in breaking the engagement.</p>
+
+<p>Frémont performed his duty to the letter, returned to Washington, and
+married Miss Benton, October 19, 1841&mdash;a "runaway match" which happily
+brought life-long happiness to both parties&mdash;Mrs. Frémont becoming the
+connecting link, to use her own words, between her father's "fixed idea
+of the importance of the speedy acquisition of the Pacific coast, and
+its actualization through the man best fitted to be the pioneer of the
+undertaking."</p>
+
+<p>Less than a year after his marriage, in the summer of 1842, Frémont was
+sent <span class="pagenum"><a id="page343" name="page343"></a>(p. 343)</span> by the War Department on the <i>first</i> of the <i>five</i>
+expeditions which gave him the name of Pathfinder.</p>
+
+<p>The Mexican War was ripening fast. England had at that time financial
+claims upon Mexico, and Mexico was bankrupt.</p>
+
+<p>How to get California was a serious question, reminding United States
+diplomatists of the old Quaker's advice to his son&mdash;"Get money, Joseph,
+get money. Get it honestly if you can&mdash;<i>but get it</i>." Acquisition of
+California by settlement was vigorously encouraged. The best routes
+across the mountains must be discovered and surveyed. Partial
+explorations of routes to Oregon and California had been made. Emigrants
+had crossed the Rockies and were settled in the Sacramento Valley. But
+the geography of the Great Basin was inaccessible to science; the best
+and safest routes were only guessed at. Emigration was checked by rumors
+of perils, alas! too true. Frémont's order to go to the frontier beyond
+the Mississippi, was changed at his request for something more
+definite&mdash;the exploration of <i>the South Pass</i> of the Rocky Mountains.</p>
+
+<p>August 8, 1842, he reached the South Pass, and then the unexplored was
+before him&mdash;untrodden ground. Kit Carson was his guide; twenty-eight men
+made up his party&mdash;Canadian voyageurs, picked men, well mounted and
+armed&mdash;only eight of the expedition driving wagons. Randolph Benton, a
+lad of twelve, Frémont's brother-in-law, was one of the number. The
+great event of this expedition, so full of thrilling adventure, was the
+first ascent of that highest peak of the Wind River Mountains, now
+called Frémont's Peak, 13,570 feet in height. "We mounted the barometer
+in the snow of the summit," Frémont wrote, "and fixing a ramrod in the
+crevice, unfurled the national flag where never flag waved before....
+While we were sitting on the rock a solitary bumble-bee came winging its
+flight from the eastern valley, and lit on the knee of one of the men."
+They run a cañon in the Platte, singing a Canadian boat-song for all the
+peril.... Their boat is whirled over, food, ammunition, and valuable
+records lost. Climbing up and out of the cañon, they admire the scenery
+in spite of their forlornity ... cacti and bare feet, hunger and thirst
+... but astronomical and barometrical observations and drawings are
+made, botanical specimens collected, and a mass of information, making
+the report of this expedition<a id="footnotetag19" name="footnotetag19"></a><a href="#footnote19" title="Go to footnote 19"><span class="small">[19]</span></a> what has been called the most enduring
+monument of Frémont's fame. The report was hailed in England as well as
+the United States, and was followed by an increase of the wagon-trains
+across the mountains via the South Pass.</p>
+
+<p>The first expedition was absent some six months. Frémont's Peak marks
+the western point of that journey.</p>
+
+<p>The next order from the Government sent Frémont, in the spring of 1843,
+to begin exploring where he had left off in 1842; to connect his survey
+with that of Commodore Wilkes on the Pacific coast. Kit Carson was again
+his guide; many of the previous expedition enlisted, 32 men in all.
+Across the forks of the Kansas the route lay west of Fort Laramie,
+through the Medicine Butte Pass and the South Pass to the northern end
+of Great Salt Lake. Frémont's report of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page344" name="page344"></a>(p. 344)</span> this region led the
+Mormons to settle at Salt Lake afterward, believing they would be in
+Mexican territory. The record of this expedition, like the preceding
+one, is a story of fearful suffering and heroic endurance. It is given
+in detail in Frémont's "Memoirs," and Benton's "Thirty Years in the
+Senate." Deep snows on the mountains, no sign of the Buena Ventura
+River, Indians refusing to guide such a foolhardy venture; "skeleton men
+leading skeleton horses;" the descent into the Sacramento Valley at
+last, and the arrival at Fort Vancouver, November 1843, gives but a
+glimpse of the heroism of this second expedition. The suffering endured
+in reaching the coast was as nothing to that of the return through the
+great valley between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada, looking for the
+river they were the first to prove did not exist at all. From San
+Francisco back to Salt Lake, three thousand five hundred miles in eight
+months, not once out of the sight of snow. Geography had gained an
+important fact&mdash;the Colorado was the only river flowing from the Rocky
+Mountains on that part of the continent. For eight months not a word had
+been heard from the party, at the East, and then Frémont came home "thin
+as a shadow," and Mrs. Frémont could tell him that she might have
+prevented his going at all had she chosen, for an order from Washington,
+countermanding the expedition, had been received by her addressed to her
+husband, soon after his departure from St. Louis. The expedition was not
+too far away when the despatch came for her to get it to him, but she
+decided to withhold it. Because he had taken a mountain howitzer in his
+outfit he was ordered to stay at home. What a scientific expedition
+could want of a howitzer was not plain to the authorities, who seemed to
+think that hostile Indians knew at sight the difference between a
+military and a scientific party and would respect it. Mrs. Frémont tells
+the story in <i>The Century</i> for March, 1891, how she not only did not
+send on the despatch, but a messenger instead, bidding Frémont "Go on at
+once without asking why," so fearful was she a duplicate order might
+defeat his going at all.</p>
+
+<p>General Scott was Commander in Chief of our Army in 1845. At his
+instance Lieutenant Frémont was made captain in the United States Army,
+and in the fall of that year was sent by the Government on another
+expedition ... this time to find the best road to the Pacific coast.
+Trouble with Mexico was growing fast. Our southwestern territory needed
+looking after; the northwestern of Mexico as well. Frémont was to follow
+the Arkansas River to its source in the Rocky Mountains, explore the
+Great Basin, the Cascades, and the Sierra Nevada, and define a route in
+a southern latitude for emigrants. Kit Carson was among the sixty men of
+this party, and several veterans of the two former expeditions. They
+struck out for the Sierra by the way of the Humboldt River. The war with
+Mexico broke out soon after their departure.</p>
+
+<p>It was another story of fearful hardship&mdash;the Sacramento Valley was
+reached at last, and Frémont hastened to Monterey to get permission from
+the Mexican authorities to make a scientific exploration of the region.
+His request was granted, and permission given to replenish his exhausted
+supplies. Why the Government revoked this permission almost as soon as
+granted, ordering him and his <span class="pagenum"><a id="page345" name="page345"></a>(p. 345)</span> men to quit the country at once
+or they would be sent as prisoners to Mexico, is a source of much
+controversy between historians of that day and this. Frémont could not
+retreat into the desert with his scanty outfit. A rude fort was built at
+once on Hawk's Peak, some thirty miles from Monterey, and the Stars and
+Stripes flung out, Frémont and his men ready to take the consequences of
+such defiance. When they withdrew, as they did in a few days, overtures
+from the Mexicans followed them, even a proposition from the Spanish
+officer that Frémont should join with him and declare the country
+independent of Mexico. Frémont moved northward. He had reached Tlamath
+Lake when overtaken by a special messenger from Washington, the bearer
+of a despatch which had been memorized by the messenger to prevent its
+falling into the hands of the Mexicans, and which Frémont interpreted to
+mean that it was the wish of the Cabinet that he should aid in taking
+and holding California, in the event of any occurrence which he thought
+justification for so doing. The English must not strengthen their
+foothold on the coast. Someone must look after the interest of the
+United States; he was on the ground. If a crisis came he must act
+without written authority, promptly and discreetly&mdash;"Get it honestly if
+you can&mdash;<i>but get it</i>." He returned at once to California, and found it
+in a revolutionary state. The American settlers had hoisted what was
+called the Bear Flag, and were eager to fight for the overthrow of the
+Mexican authority in California.</p>
+
+<p>It is a long story, that of the conquest of California. Frémont's right
+to be called the Conqueror or the Emancipator is bitterly disputed by
+some, who claim that he attacked the Californians by irregular warfare,
+and so thwarted the conciliatory designs of the Government. Be that as
+it may, by July 5, 1846, the Bear Flag insurgents under Frémont had
+declared their independence of Mexico, and Frémont had been appointed
+Governor of California, and had hauled down the Bear Flag and raised the
+Stars and Stripes. A constitution had been drawn up and the territory
+declared to be in the possession of the United States. January, 1847,
+"the enemy" capitulated to Frémont. "The celerity and boldness of his
+movements in the conduct of the affair were only surpassed," says a
+contemporary, "by the moderation and clemency of his policy." "The
+decisive point," wrote George Bancroft, "in the establishment of the
+Union on a firm basis had been gained."</p>
+
+<p>The seizure of California in 1846 has been called, from another outlook,
+"one of the least creditable affairs in the highly discreditable Mexican
+War," and Frémont nothing more than a filibuster seeking private ends.
+California had been made ours, nevertheless, and Frémont had secured the
+prize.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime the Mexican War had begun, and Commodore Stockton, of
+the U. S. Navy, was hastening to California <i>by sea</i> under orders to
+subjugate the country. General Kearney was marching westward <i>by land</i>
+under like orders. Of course there was a dispute about precedence when
+both were upon the ground, each asserting his right to command the
+other, both issuing orders and insisting upon the right to precedence.
+The difficulty of serving under two masters was experienced by Frémont.
+General Vallejo testified that he received in <span class="pagenum"><a id="page346" name="page346"></a>(p. 346)</span> one day, letters
+from Commodore Stockton, General Kearney, and Colonel Frémont, each
+signing himself "Commander-in-Chief." Frémont believed he had sufficient
+reason for choosing to serve under Stockton, which he did. Upon
+Stockton's return to his squadron and Kearney's assignment to full
+command, Kearney brought charges against Frémont for mutiny and fraud,
+defeating his re-appointment as governor of the State besides. Frémont
+was ordered home, and it was said "that, like Columbus, he returned from
+the discovery and conquest of a new world, a prisoner and in disgrace."
+He went back to Washington under arrest. Great honors awaited him,
+nevertheless, his troubles only adding to his laurels. The citizens of
+Charleston gave him a sword, the ladies the gold-mounted belt of the
+same. He demanded immediate trial, which was granted, the court-martial
+lasting three months, his defence filling three sessions. He was
+pronounced guilty of mutiny, disobedience of the lawful command of a
+superior officer, and conduct to the prejudice of good order and
+military discipline&mdash;a conviction based, some said, upon technical
+grounds. President Polk remitted the penalty&mdash;dismissal from the
+army&mdash;but Frémont resigned at once, the President reluctantly accepting
+his resignation.</p>
+
+<p>Frémont was then thirty-four years old. As the leader of three great
+exploring expeditions he had become not only famous, but a popular hero.
+He had done much for science. He had made the most accurate map of the
+region between the one hundred and fourth meridian and the Pacific. He
+had added a large collection of botanical, geological, and other
+specimens to the national museums. He was eager to resume explorations
+of routes to the Pacific, having decided to settle his family in
+California&mdash;upon the Mariposa estate, in the Sacramento Valley, which he
+had bought in 1847, before the discovery of gold, seventy square miles,
+for $3,000, "the only Mexican grant that covered any part of the gold
+regions."</p>
+
+<p>Frémont's claims against the Government for expenses incurred in the
+conquest and defence of California, amounted to some $700,000, which was
+paid to him. Among those advocating the payment were Senators Benton,
+and Dix of New York. Twenty thousand copies of Frémont's map of Oregon
+and California were ordered by the Senate.</p>
+
+<p>It was by no means in the rôle of a defeated man that he started out
+upon his fourth expedition, in the fall of 1848&mdash;when the gold fever was
+at its height&mdash;a venture of his own and Colonel Benton's; its object, a
+route to the Pacific by way of the Rio Grande. Thirty-two men were
+enlisted, picked men as before. It was a superb and costly outfit, no
+less than one hundred and twenty mules. Lacking Kit Carson for a guide,
+they were lost in crossing the Rocky Mountains, every mule and horse and
+one-third of the men perishing from cold or starvation. At last, as he
+wrote home, "the mules, huddled together in the deep snow, froze stiff
+as they stood and fell over like blocks." The freezing men recrossed the
+summit in retreat, some of them driven to cannibalism. Wading through
+the snow to the waist, the remnant reached the home of Kit Carson at
+Taos, N. M., where Frémont reorganized the expedition, reaching the
+Sacramento in the spring of 1849.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page347" name="page347"></a>(p. 347)</span> Litigation concerning his title to the Mariposa estate did not
+prevent Frémont from developing its mineral and agricultural resources.
+He engaged some twenty-eight Spaniards to work its gold mines upon
+shares. His prospects of boundless wealth were most flattering. The
+Pathfinder was now a millionaire, and in 1855 his title to Mariposa was
+established by the Supreme Court. Following his appointment in 1849 to
+run the boundary line between the United States and Mexico, the
+political party of the Territory seeking its admission as a free State,
+elected him to the United States Senate. Many honors were bestowed upon
+him at this time&mdash;the medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London,
+the Founders medal from the King of Prussia, an honorary membership of
+the Geographical Society of Berlin, etc.</p>
+
+<p>In the California State election of 1851, Frémont stood with the
+Anti-Slavery party, opposed to the extension of slavery in free
+territories. He was defeated, and went to Europe with his family in
+1852, where he was fêted by royalty generally. Mrs. Frémont, in her
+"Souvenirs of My Time," has given charming glimpses of this part of
+their life. Hearing that Congress had made appropriation for further
+surveys of great Western routes, Frémont hastened home in 1853, to
+explore by a fifth expedition, what he believed to be the most central
+and practicable route. This was his second private venture. He would
+follow the path he had lost when the guide led him astray on his fourth
+expedition. He would cross the Rockies at Cochetopa Pass, and that in
+winter.</p>
+
+<p>He made the passage, but it was at the cost of frightful suffering;
+fifty days on frozen horse-flesh, days without even that; forty-eight
+hours without a morsel of food; the entire party barefooted in the snow;
+Frémont, in the hour of extreme peril on the storm-swept mountain-side,
+making his men take oath that, come what might, nothing should tempt
+them to cannibalism. Benton tells us how Frémont went straight to the
+spot where the guide had gone astray in 1848, and found safe and easy
+passes all the way to California, upon the straight line of 38° and 39°.
+Great railroads of to-day follow the line it took those starving and
+half-frozen men fifty days to pass in that winter of 1854. For three
+months nothing was heard from the party. Frémont's arrival in San
+Francisco was an ovation. "Europe lies between Asia and America," we
+read in his report; "build the road, and America lies between Europe and
+Asia.... The iron track to San Francisco will be the thoroughfare of the
+world."</p>
+
+<p>The issues at stake in the presidential campaign of 1856 make that
+campaign the most important of any in the history of our country. "The
+question now to be decided," said Seward, "is whether a slave-holding
+class shall govern America or not." The nomination of John Charles
+Frémont as the candidate of the Republican party was hailed with
+enthusiasm at the North. The Civil War was impending. The lines between
+the defenders of slavery and its opponents were sharply defined. Frémont
+was the first nominee of the Republican party. The romance and adventure
+of his career, his upright life, the hero-worship of the Pacific coast,
+the antagonism of the South, gave the canvass a vitalizing force that
+his defeat by James Buchanan did not lessen, but simply <span class="pagenum"><a id="page348" name="page348"></a>(p. 348)</span>
+changed into a new phase of strength. Frémont's popular vote was
+1,341,000 against 1,838,000 for Buchanan and 874,000 for Fillmore
+(Know-Nothing). Frémont received 114 electoral votes, and Buchanan 174.</p>
+
+<p>When the Civil War broke out, in 1861, Frémont was in Europe. He offered
+his services to the Government at once, and was appointed one of the
+four major-generals of the regular army, and given his choice of a
+command at the East or the West. He chose the West. "Who holds the
+Mississippi will hold the country by the heart," he said. His
+head-quarters were at St. Louis, where secession was rampant. "You must
+use your own judgment," wrote President Lincoln, "and do the best you
+can. I doubt if the States will ever come back." Frémont's policy
+differed from Lincoln's essentially; it lacked that patient,
+conciliatory spirit with the South which made it hard for many at the
+North to approve of the compromising policy of the Chief Executive,
+seeking to hold the neutral States from seceding. Frémont's hatred of
+the rebellion led him to deal with it just as he would have done with a
+mutiny on a perilous expedition. He proclaimed martial law. Rebels were
+to pay some penalty for rebellion&mdash;rebel newspapers were silenced&mdash;and
+what was the notable feature of Frémont's administration&mdash;the slaves of
+those in arms against the Government were declared emancipated; his
+emancipation proclamation antedating Lincoln's of September 22, 1862, by
+a little more than a year. But Frémont's policy was censured rather than
+approved by the country at large. Petty intrigues of officers in close
+relation with the Cabinet did much to defeat his plans. His fleet of
+gunboats was called a useless extravagance&mdash;his staff "the California
+Gang." His emancipation proclamation was pronounced premature and unwise
+by Lincoln, and revoked. Frémont again was the cause of an intense
+public partisanship, "Frémont's career at the West was brief," says
+"Patton's Concise History of the United States," "only one hundred days;
+but, being a man of military instincts and training, he showed in that
+time a sagacity which was not allowed fair practical development. In
+that brief time he was the first to suggest and inaugurate the following
+practices, then widely decried, but without which the war would not have
+been successfully concluded: the free use of cavalry (strongly opposed
+by General Scott and others); exchange of prisoners with the enemy;
+fortification of large cities, to allow armies to take the field;
+building of river gunboats for the interior operations at the West; and
+the emancipation of the slaves. In short, he contributed more than is
+generally credited to him." "To get rid of Frémont," says Major-General
+Sigel, "the good prospects and honor of the army were sacrificed to the
+jealousy of successful rivals." Frémont was relieved of his command in
+1861, and shortly after appointed commander of the Mountain District of
+Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, where he did most honorable service,
+Stonewall Jackson retreating before him after eight days' sharp
+skirmishing, ending in the battle of Cross Keys.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the appointment of General Pope as Commander of the Army of
+Virginia, making him Frémont's superior officer, Frémont asked to be
+relieved; his request was granted.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page349" name="page349"></a>(p. 349)</span> A minority of the Republican party, the radical wing, opposed
+to the renomination of Lincoln in 1864, nominated Frémont as their
+candidate. He accepted, but finally withdrew. "Not to aid in the triumph
+of Lincoln," he said, "but to do my part toward preventing the election
+of the Democratic candidate." One of the Republican candidates would
+have to retire to save the party. Here is a subject for debating clubs:
+Was the interest of the country best served by Frémont's withdrawal from
+the canvass of 1864?</p>
+
+<p>After 1864 Frémont took little part in public life. He became absorbed
+in his great trans-continental railroad scheme of a line from Norfolk to
+San Diego and San Francisco, in which he ultimately lost his large
+fortune. French agents, in disposing of his bonds in France, made false
+representations. He was prosecuted by the French Government in 1873, and
+sentenced by default to fine and imprisonment, although no judgment was
+given on the merits of the case.</p>
+
+<p>The sale of his Mariposa grant brought him several millions, which he
+invested in railroads soon after the war, buying the properties that now
+constitute a large part of the Texas Pacific and other roads belonging
+to the Atchison and Santa Fé. In the great consolidation entailed by the
+foreign litigation, his confidence was abused, and he met with heavy and
+irreparable loss.</p>
+
+<p>From 1878 to 1881 he was Governor of Arizona. His "Memoirs" appeared in
+1886. The closing years of his life were spent in comparative
+retirement.</p>
+
+<p>Not long before his sudden death in New York City July 14, 1890, at the
+age of seventy-seven years, he had been placed on the retired list of
+the United States Army with the rank of Major-General. When he passed
+away the Pathfinder of Africa was filling the public ear&mdash;the wedding of
+Stanley in Westminster Abbey was the theme of the hour.</p>
+
+<p>He was buried in Kensico Cemetery, Piermont-on-the-Hudson, about thirty
+miles from New York City, near the country home of his prosperous days.
+His widow, Jessie Benton Frémont, is at this writing (1893), a resident
+of Los Angeles, Cal. Three children survive their father, an unmarried
+daughter, Elizabeth McDowell Benton, Lieutenant Frank Preston Frémont,
+U. S. A.; and Lieutenant John Charles Frémont, U. S. N. After his death
+Mrs. Frémont demanded compensation for, or restitution of the property
+appropriated by the United States Government for military purposes in
+San Francisco harbor, in 1863, and for which she has never received a
+dollar (1893). The settlement of this claim in her favor is anticipated
+by the bench generally, long as justice to her has been delayed. At
+present she has a pension from the Government.</p>
+
+<p>Some profess to find it hard reading the character of John Charles
+Frémont, calling it enigmatical and baffling. Not so with those who knew
+him best. "His unwritten history," writes one of these, "gives the clew
+to his life."</p>
+
+<p>That he was a man of indomitable courage none can deny; a man of lofty
+principle and unblemished character. An atmosphere of romance makes him
+the American Chevalier.</p>
+
+<p>He did more than any other man to open the pathways to the Pacific
+coast. The bitter feeling engendered by the California conquest, and his
+policy in the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page350" name="page350"></a>(p. 350)</span> Civil War, is not yet extinct. Partisanship has
+biassed the most of his biographers. The intense feeling underlying the
+presidential campaign of 1856 did not conduce to a fair estimate of the
+man, who has suffered hardly less from the intense admiration of his
+friends than from jealousies of rivals and foes. "I tried to do my
+duty," he would say in his old age, when asked to explain knotty points
+about the conquest.</p>
+
+<p>"All that he ever did for the Government," says one who knew him well,
+"was uniformly repaid with injury." That is the verdict of one side of
+the controversy. The sifting and weighing of a mass of conflicting
+evidence, preceding the final verdict of permanent history, is not yet
+ended in Frémont's case. That the outcome will be illumination of his
+fame rather than obscuration, his unswerving defenders do not doubt.</p>
+
+<p>"Though the Pathfinders die, the paths remain open."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig012" name="sig012"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig012.jpg" width="300" height="60" alt="Author signature. Jane Marsh Parker." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>DAVID LIVINGSTONE<br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Professor W. G. Blaikie, LL.D.</span><br>
+
+(1813-1873)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img034" name="img034"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img034.jpg" width="250" height="331" alt="David Livingstone." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>David Livingstone, missionary and traveller, was born at Blantyre, in
+Lanarkshire, March 19, 1813. His parents, who were in humble life, were
+of devout and exemplary character; his father in particular being a
+great reader, especially of travels and missionary intelligence, and
+much interested in the enterprise of the nineteenth century. At the age
+of ten David became a worker in a cotton-factory at Blantyre, and
+continued in that laborious occupation for fourteen years. His thirst
+for knowledge led him to read all that he could lay his hands on; he
+used also to attend a night-class, after the long hours of the factory,
+for the study of Latin. The reading of Dick's "Philosophy of a Future
+State" was not only the means of a profound impression on his mind, but
+kindled the desire to devote his life as a missionary to the service of
+Christ.</p>
+
+<p>Deeply impressed with the advantages of medical training to a
+missionary, he <span class="pagenum"><a id="page351" name="page351"></a>(p. 351)</span> resolved to qualify himself in medicine, as
+well as the other attainments looked for in a missionary. The London
+Missionary Society having accepted the offer of his services, he went to
+London to complete his studies. His first desire was to labor in China,
+but, war having broken out between that country and Great Britain, this
+wish could not be fulfilled. The Rev. Robert Moffat's visit at this time
+to England turned many hearts to Africa&mdash;Livingstone's among the rest;
+ultimately he was appointed to that field, and, having been ordained on
+November 20, 1840, he set sail for Africa, reaching Lattakoo or Kuruman,
+Moffat's settlement, on July 31, 1841.</p>
+
+<p>For several years Livingstone labored as a missionary in the Bechuana
+country, at Mabotse, Chonuana, and Kolobeng, places that were chosen by
+him just because they were in the heart of heathenism. The conversion of
+Sechélé, chief of the Bakwains, and several of his tribe, was a great
+encouragement. Repulsed by the Boers in an effort to plant native
+missionaries in the Transvaal, he directed his steps northward,
+discovered Lake 'Ngami and found the country there traversed by fine
+rivers and inhabited by a dense population. His anxiety to benefit this
+region led finally to his undertaking to explore the whole country
+westward to the Atlantic at St. Paul de Loanda, and eastward to the
+Indian Ocean at Quilimane.</p>
+
+<p>Livingstone had married at Mabotse, Mary, eldest daughter of the Rev. R.
+Moffat, and now he found it necessary to send her, with their children,
+to England, that he might be free for this vast and perilous
+undertaking. To accomplish it occupied from June 8, 1852, when he left
+Cape Town, to May 26, 1856, when he arrived at Quilimane. This journey
+was accomplished with a mere handful of followers, and a mere pittance
+of stores, amid sicknesses and other bodily troubles, perils, and
+difficulties without number. But a vast amount of valuable information
+was gathered respecting the country and its products, its geography and
+natural history, the native tribes, the regions that were favorable to
+health, and some great natural wonders, such as the Zambesi Falls.</p>
+
+<p>Livingstone, however, found that the London Missionary Society were not
+willing that he should be to so large an extent an explorer, and some
+time after returning to Britain he resigned his office as one of their
+missionaries.</p>
+
+<p>At home Livingstone was welcomed with extraordinary enthusiasm,
+receiving the acknowledgments and honors of scientific societies,
+universities, town councils, and other public bodies in every quarter of
+the country. In addition to these tokens of honor, the fifteen months
+spent at home were signalized by three things: the writing of his book,
+"Missionary Travels" (1857), which was received with the liveliest
+interest; his visit to Cambridge, awakening the enthusiasm of many of
+the students, and leading to the formation afterward of the
+"Universities Mission;" and his appointment by Her Majesty's Government
+as chief of an expedition for exploring the Zambesi and its tributaries,
+and the regions adjacent.</p>
+
+<p>On this expedition Livingstone set out on March 10, 1858. While
+successful in many ways, it led to not a little disappointment.
+Livingstone explored the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page352" name="page352"></a>(p. 352)</span> Zambesi, the Shiré, and the Rovuma;
+discovered Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, and came to a decided conclusion
+that Lake Nyassa and its neighborhood was the best field for both
+commercial and missionary operations. His disappointments arose from the
+grievous defects of a steamer sent out to him by Government, from the
+death of comrades and helpers, including his wife and Bishop Mackenzie;
+from the abandonment of the Universities Mission; from the opposition of
+the Portuguese authorities; but mainly from the distressing discovery
+that, encouraged by Portuguese traders, the slave-trade was extending in
+the district, and the slave-traders using his very discoveries to
+facilitate their infamous traffic. At length a despatch recalling the
+expedition was received, July 2, 1863. Livingstone, at his own cost, had
+brought out a new steamer, but she could not be put on the lake.
+Depressed though he was, he explored the northern banks of Lake Nyassa
+on foot; then in his own vessel, and under his own seamanship, crossed
+the Indian Ocean to Bombay; and after a brief stay there, returned to
+Britain, reaching London on July 23, 1864.</p>
+
+<p>At home Livingstone had two objects&mdash;to expose the atrocious deeds of
+the Portuguese slave-traders, and to find means of establishing a
+settlement for missions and commerce somewhere near the head of the
+Rovuma, or wherever a suitable locality could be found. His second
+book, "The Zambesi and its Tributaries" (1865), was designed to further
+these objects. He was again received with every demonstration of honor
+and regard. A proposal was made to him, on the part of the Royal
+Geographical Society, to return to Africa and settle a disputed question
+regarding the water-shed of Central Africa and the sources of the Nile.
+He said he would go only as a missionary, but was willing to help to
+solve the geographical problem.</p>
+
+<p>He set out in August, 1865, <i>via</i> Bombay and Zanzibar. On March 19,
+1866, he started from the latter place, first of all trying to find a
+suitable settlement, then striking westward in order to solve the
+geographical problem. Through the ill-behavior of some of his attendants
+a report of his death was circulated, but an expedition, headed by Mr.
+E. D. Young, R. N., ascertained that the report was false. Livingstone
+pressed westward amid innumerable hardships, and in 1869 discovered
+Lakes Meoro and Bangweolo. All the while he was doing what he could for
+the religious enlightenment of the natives. Obliged to return for rest
+to Ujiji, where he found his goods squandered, he struck westward again
+as far as the river Lualaba, thinking it might possibly be the Nile, but
+far from certain that it was not, what it proved afterward to be, the
+Congo. Returning after severe illness once more to Ujiji, Livingstone
+found there, Mr. H. M. Stanley, who had been sent to look for him by the
+proprietor of the <i>New York Herald</i>. But no consideration would induce
+him to return home till he had made one more effort to solve the
+geographical problem.</p>
+
+<p>He returned to Lake Bangweolo, but fell into wretched health. His
+sufferings always increasing, when he reached Chitambo's village in
+Ilala, he was obliged to give in. On the morning of May 1, 1873, he was
+found by his attendants on his knees, dead. His faithful people embalmed
+his body as best they <span class="pagenum"><a id="page353" name="page353"></a>(p. 353)</span> could, carried it amid the greatest
+perils to the shore, where it was put on board a British cruiser, and on
+April 18, 1874, it was buried in Westminster Abbey.</p>
+
+<p>Among the remains brought home were his "Last Journals," brought down to
+within a few days of his death; these were published in 1874. Stanley
+suggested the name of Livingstone for the main stream of the Congo
+(hence the Baptist Mission on the Lower Congo was called the
+"Livingstone Inland Mission"), and Mr. H. H. Johnston proposed that part
+of the East African territory acquired by Britain in 1890&mdash;the lower
+drainage area of the Zambesi&mdash;should be called Livingstone Land.</p>
+
+<hr class="small">
+
+<p>The following letter, written by him to his children in 1853, during his
+first exploring tour, gives the character of the man, and shows his deep
+religious feeling:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Sekelétu's Town, Linyanti, 2d October.</i>&mdash;My dear Robert, Agnes, and
+Thomas and Oswell.&mdash;Here is another little letter for you all. I should
+like to see you much more than write to you, and speak with my tongue
+rather than with my pen, but we are far from each other&mdash;very, very far.
+Here are Scipone, and Meriye, and others who saw you as the first white
+children they ever looked at. Meriye came the other day and brought a
+round basket for Nannie. She made it of the leaves of the palmyra.
+Others put me in mind of you all by calling me Rananee, Rarobert, and
+there is a little Thomas in the town, and when I think of you I
+remember, though I am far off, Jesus, our good and gracious Jesus, is
+ever near both you and me, and then I pray to Him to bless you and make
+you good.</p>
+
+<p>"He is ever near. Remember this if you feel angry or naughty. Jesus is
+near you, and sees you, and He is so good and kind. When He was among
+men, those who heard him speak said, 'Never man spake like this man,'
+and we now say, 'Never did man love like Him.' You see little Zouga is
+carried on mamma's bosom. You are taken care of by Jesus with as much
+care as mamma takes care of Zouga. He is always watching you and keeping
+you in safety. It is very bad to sin, to do any naughty things, or speak
+angry or naughty words before Him.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear children, take Him as your Guide, your Helper, your Friend, and
+Saviour through life. Whatever you are troubled about, ask Him to keep
+you. Our God is good. We thank Him that we have such a Saviour and
+Friend as He is. Now you are little, but you will not always be so,
+hence you must learn to read, and write, and work. All clever men can
+both read and write, and Jesus needs clever men to do His work. Would
+you not like to work for Him among men? Jesus is wishing to send His
+gospel to all nations, and He needs clever men to do this. Would you
+like to serve Him? Well, you must learn now, and not get tired learning.
+After some time you will like learning better than playing, but you must
+play too in order to make your bodies strong and be able to serve Jesus.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page354" name="page354"></a>(p. 354)</span> "I am glad to hear that you go to the academy. I hope you are
+learning fast. Don't speak Scotch. It is not so pretty as English. Is
+the Tau learning to read with mamma? I hope you are all kind to mamma. I
+saw a poor woman in a chain with many others, up at the Barotse. She had
+a little child, and both she and her child were very thin. See how kind
+Jesus was to you. No one can put you in chains unless you become bad.
+If, however, you learn bad ways, beginning only by saying bad words or
+doing little bad things, Satan will have you in chains for sin, and you
+will be hurried on in his bad ways till you are put into the dreadful
+place which God hath prepared for him and all who are like him. Pray to
+Jesus to deliver you from sin, give you new hearts, and make you His
+children. Kiss Zouga, mamma, and each other for me.</p>
+
+<p class="left50">
+  "Your ever affectionate father."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>CYRUS W. FIELD<a id="footnotetag20" name="footnotetag20"></a><a href="#footnote20" title="Go to footnote 20"><span class="small">[20]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Murat Halstead</span><br>
+
+(1819-1892)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img035" name="img035"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img035.jpg" width="250" height="359" alt="Cyrus W. Field." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>We, the people of the United States, have been celebrating with
+memorable pomp the discovery of our hemisphere by Christopher Columbus,
+and the elder nations and far-off islands have joined us in an immense
+festivity, honoring beyond all example of approbation an adventure that
+was a marvel, and an achievement that is immortal.</p>
+
+<p>All the world remembers the voyage of Columbus, that, persevered in
+through trials and perils, ended in triumph&mdash;how he studied the stars
+and the charts, and out of the dreams of ages wove the fabric of fancy
+that grew to theory, and prophecy, and history, that there was land
+beyond the Atlantic; and there is no moment in human life supreme above,
+or of more fascinating interest than, that when, from the deck of his
+caravel he saw the light on the shore of the new world.</p>
+
+<p>An incident worthy to be associated for ever with this, is that of Cyrus
+West Field, in his library, turning over a globe, after a conversation
+relative to extending <span class="pagenum"><a id="page355" name="page355"></a>(p. 355)</span> a line of telegraph to Newfoundland, to
+reduce the time of the transmission of news between Europe and America;
+when the idea flashed into his mind that the telegraph might span the
+Atlantic. The next day Mr. Field wrote to Lieutenant Maury, of the
+National Observatory at Washington, and to Professor Morse, who invented
+the telegraph.</p>
+
+<p>The Atlantic telegraph was as truly the conception and the
+accomplishment of Mr. Field, as the discovery of America was the
+ambition and the act of Columbus; and Chief Justice Chase was not
+extravagant when he said the telegraph across the ocean was "the most
+wonderful achievement of civilization," and entitled "its author to a
+distinguished rank among benefactors;" or when he added: "High upon that
+illustrious roll will his name be placed, and there will it remain while
+oceans divide and telegraphs unite mankind." John Bright said: "My
+friend Field, the Columbus of modern times, by his cable has moored the
+New World alongside the Old."</p>
+
+<p>Equally lofty testimony to the splendor of his fame is that of the
+London <i>Times</i> of August 6, 1858, saying: "Since the discovery of
+Columbus, nothing has been done in any degree comparable to the vast
+enlargement which has thus been given to the sphere of human activity."</p>
+
+<p>From the first vital spark that at last glows into the bloom of life,
+each human being is endowed with certain qualities and capacities,
+aptitudes, inspirations, possibilities, limitations; and if one trace
+the stream of blood to its remotest sources, there is no inconsistency
+in ancestry, and the science of humanity may be as strict within its
+boundaries as that of geology, or the story of fruitful trees, or the
+magnetic constellations.</p>
+
+<p>The four famous brothers have given the Field family an almost unique
+celebrity in this country. They were the sons of the Rev. David Dudley
+Field, of Western Massachusetts, the room-mate at Yale College of
+Jeremiah Evarts, father of William M. Evarts. Field and Evarts entered
+college together in 1798, and graduated in 1802. The American Fields are
+the descendants of John Field, the astronomer of Ardsley, in Yorkshire,
+who gained a great reputation by publishing astronomical tables, and
+died in 1587. Ardsley, it has not passed from the general recollection,
+was the name of the estate on the Hudson where for so many years Mr.
+Cyrus W. Field made his summer home.</p>
+
+<p>The family name was in the fifteenth century changed from Feld, Feild,
+Felde, and Fielde, into its present form; and John Field, the
+astronomer, was the first to introduce the Copernican system in England,
+and he received a patent in 1558, authorizing him to bear as a crest
+over his family arms, an arm issuing from clouds and supporting a globe.
+Dr. Richard Field, chaplain of Queen Elizabeth, was of the same family,
+and author of the "Book of the Church," republished in four volumes at
+Oxford in 1843.</p>
+
+<p>It was the last day of autumn, November 30, 1819, at the Morgan Place,
+on a hill that sloped to the river, near Stockbridge, Mass., that Cyrus
+West Field was born. There were three older brothers&mdash;David Dudley,
+Timothy Beale, and Matthew Dickinson. The Cyrus came from a man of note
+in the town, named <span class="pagenum"><a id="page356" name="page356"></a>(p. 356)</span> Cyrus Williams, and the West from Dr.
+Stephen West, the predecessor of Dr. David Dudley Field in the pulpit at
+Stockbridge. It is said of the child that he was of very delicate
+organization, so weak and frail that his body "had to be supported by a
+frame in which he could roll around the room till his limbs could get
+strength to bear him." There was, however (as his younger brother, Dr.
+Henry M. Field, the historian of the family, says in his vigorous
+English), "a nervous energy and elasticity derived from his mother,"
+that brought him up, and "once set upon his little feet, he developed by
+incessant motion," and he was noted for "restless activity," a
+characteristic of his whole life. His frame, always slight, "became
+tough and wiry, capable of great effort and great endurance." Cyrus was
+the one of the Field boys who did not go to college. When fifteen years
+of age, his brother, David Dudley, who was nearly fifteen years his
+senior, and lived until his ninetieth year, secured a place for him in
+the store of A. T. Stewart. Cyrus was a thorough country boy, and his
+mother's boy, and did not take kindly to the city at first. Dr. Field
+says: "I well remember hearing my brother Matthew tell mother how Cyrus
+had come down to the boat on which he left the city, and wept bitterly;
+and mother telling him, the next time he went to New York, if his little
+brother felt so still, to bring him home." Mr. Field soon grew tired of
+being a clerk, and launched out in the manufacture and sale of paper.
+His capital was his brains&mdash;and in twelve years, when he was but
+thirty-three years old, he was in possession of a handsome fortune, and
+thought of retiring. This, however, was only a phase of restlessness,
+and he had before him nearly forty years of extraordinary activity. His
+great works and trials, his counting his gains and losses by millions,
+his glory and his sorrows, were all before him. The first of his many
+long journeys was to South America, with the artist Church, who painted
+for him the "Heart of the Andes." He ascended the Magdalena River,
+climbed the Andes to Bogota, crossed to Quito, and by way of Guayaquil,
+in Ecuador, reached the western coast, and returned home October, 1853,
+in time for the golden wedding of his parents. Then he set about the
+task of retirement from business, and was in a feverish state of energy
+upon that subject, and drifted into the twelve years harassing struggle,
+from the time when, in his house in Gramercy Park, he sat alone and
+turned over the globe, and thought of a telegraphic cable through the
+Atlantic, until the tremendous task was gloriously finished. After
+writing to Maury and Morse, Mr. Field called in his next-door neighbor,
+Peter Cooper; and next called Moses Taylor, who listened for an hour
+without saying a word; and brought in his most intimate friend, Marshall
+O. Roberts; and then Mr. Chandler White (who died the next year and was
+succeeded by Wilson G. Hunt). They organized "The New York, Newfoundland
+and London Telegraph Company," Field, Cooper, Taylor, and Roberts
+putting in $20,000 each, and White a smaller sum. Field and White, with
+David Dudley Field as legal adviser, set forth for Newfoundland to get a
+charter, and called it a fishing excursion. They got a land donation,
+and an exclusive right to land cable for fifty years. There was first to
+build a line of telegraph four hundred miles through the wilderness,
+across the huge island. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page357" name="page357"></a>(p. 357)</span> The land-line work lasted three years,
+and each of the parties who started by putting in $20,000, put in ten
+times that amount, and Field much more. The first cable across the Gulf
+of St. Lawrence was a failure. The second one held; and at last there
+rolled two thousand miles of tempestuous ocean, with a bottom that was a
+mystery, between the verge of the American soil and the Irish coast.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cyrus W. Field visited England as an Atlantic cable missionary, and
+addressed the Chambers of Commerce in the principal cities, and the
+members of the Government. His intense convictions and incessant
+enthusiasm made way. The scientific men of England were cautious but
+hopeful. There had been, as it happened, the year before a survey of the
+North Atlantic, disclosing conditions of the bottom of the sea, and they
+were reassuring. The Government was so far interested as to engage to
+furnish ships to lay the cable, and to guarantee £14,000 a year for
+messages sent if it proved a success&mdash;four per cent. of the expected
+cost; but the capital had to be raised by private enterprise, and Mr.
+Field visited Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool, and
+subscribed one-fourth of the whole sum. His persistence was continued
+until the money was raised; but his friends in America were not eager
+for the stock, and he had to pay into the treasury of the company
+£88,000 in gold. The complete responsibility of Mr. Field appears at
+every point. He was the inspiration and the moving force from first to
+last. The work was strange, and there were delays and details of
+difficulty arising at every step, that a thousand times would have been
+insurmountable, if it had not been for the indomitable Field, whose
+tenacity even exceeded his impetuosity. There were two governments to be
+negotiated with to furnish ships. The cable was at last ready and on
+board&mdash;and three hundred and sixty-five years after Columbus sailed from
+the shores of Spain, Field sailed from Ireland, the Lord-Lieutenant, the
+Earl of Carlisle, making the speech of the occasion. The first effort
+was to lay the cable straight from Ireland to Newfoundland, and the
+start was made Wednesday, August 5, 1857. Three hundred and fifty miles
+out the cable broke. That was failure; and Field's private fortune had
+suffered severely from his absence. But the next year he was again in
+England and another start was made&mdash;the ships going half-way and joining
+the cable and running both ways. The cable parted again and again, and
+the ships returned to England. All were in despair but Field, and he
+rallied once more, and another trial was made&mdash;and succeeded. The cable
+lasted for a few weeks and gave out. The people were wild with delight
+at the success, and utterly cast down and disgusted by the failure. But
+the proof was out; the thing could be done. Cables had been laid in the
+Mediterranean, and final success was in sight. A new cable was made and
+coiled on the Great Eastern&mdash;and when starting from Ireland and one
+thousand two hundred and fifty miles were out, there was a break where
+the ocean was two miles deep, and a year was lost. Then another cable on
+the Great Eastern, and in 1866 it held out all the way over. This was
+the year of the war between Prussia and Austria, just after the battle
+of Sadowa. The next thing was to find and splice the lost cable of the
+year before, and that was done, one of the most wonderful things
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page358" name="page358"></a>(p. 358)</span> that ever happened. Mr. Field told the story before the
+Chamber of Commerce of New York in November, 1866, saying, after the
+lost cable was found and spliced: "A few minutes of suspense and a flash
+told of the lightning current again set free&mdash;some turned their heads
+away and wept, others broke into cheers. Soon the wind arose and we were
+for thirty-six hours exposed to all the dangers of a storm on the
+Atlantic; yet in the fury of the gale, as I sat in the electrician's
+room, a flash of light came up from the deep, which, having passed to
+Ireland, came back to me in mid-ocean, telling that those so dear to me,
+whom I had left on the banks of the Hudson, were well, and following us
+with their prayers. This was like a whisper of God from the sea, bidding
+me keep heart and hope."</p>
+
+<p>The Great Eastern safely landed the second cable, and the two worlds
+were safely forever joined. Mr. Field said he had often, in the long
+struggle&mdash;nearly thirteen years in the forests of Newfoundland, on ships
+in stormy seas&mdash;almost accused himself of madness, sacrificing
+everything for what might prove, after all, but a dream. He received the
+thanks of Congress, with a gold medal&mdash;the grand medal of the French
+Exposition of 1867. Honors were heaped upon him. If he had been a
+British subject, he would have been made a baronet. He had given twelve
+years without accepting remuneration for time or toil, and his hopeful,
+at last haggard dream, was a marvellous golden reality.</p>
+
+<p>He was forty-seven years of age. He visited Egypt at the opening of the
+Suez Canal in 1864. He attended the millennial celebration of the
+settlement of Iceland in August, 1874. He made with his wife a trip
+around the world in 1880. He was known in all civilized lands as one of
+the foremost men of his time. All the people of the highest distinction
+in England knew and admired him as the most typical and celebrated of
+Americans. Mr. Gladstone, Mr. John Bright, the Duke of Argyle, Dean
+Stanley were his intimate friends. His house at Gramercy Park was the
+scene of a splendid hospitality. There gathered in his ample parlors,
+stored with souvenirs from every land, and in his dining-room, men and
+women of the highest consideration at home and abroad.</p>
+
+<p>The keenness of his intelligence had increased with his unprecedented
+experience. His triumphs had given him confidence in his executive
+ability, and there was nothing too daring for him to contemplate. His
+bitter lessons in going to the verge of ruin, when he gave the fortune
+of his youth to the enterprise that he carried to success, were amply
+pondered, and he resolved never again to allow those near and dear to
+him to take the chances of cruel fortune and the anxieties of impending
+want.</p>
+
+<p>When his years were numbered in the thirties, he was meditating
+retirement from business; and when he was in the sixties, his
+irrepressible activities carried him into the development of the
+elevated railway system on Manhattan Island, with the same ardor and
+fixed purpose with which, thirty years before, he had invaded the
+wilderness of Newfoundland to find a basis of operations for the
+conquest of the Atlantic. His faith was undaunted and without limit. His
+touch revealed new fortunes. He saw that the elevated lines that
+developed Harlem, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page359" name="page359"></a>(p. 359)</span> would also improve lower New York; and the
+Washington Building, No. 1 Broadway, was the materialization of the
+thought. The intensity that was remarked in his childhood, and that
+commanded the confidence of the capitalists of England, knew no
+abatement. He had been very cautious in advising Englishmen about
+investments, but had imparted to some of them the assurance that United
+States Bonds were as sound as the English investment of national debt,
+and they profited by accepting his judgment. He insisted upon
+popularizing the elevated roads by a uniform fare of five cents, and had
+it done against strong opposition, and was more confident than ever in
+the stock, of which he had an enormous holding. But it took years longer
+than he had calculated to make good his plans, and in the interval came
+a financial storm that compelled him to submit to a heavy loss. He bore
+his misfortune with fortitude, and still had a competency ample for him,
+when there came a torrent of ill-fortune&mdash;the loss of his beloved wife,
+and the failure of his sons, under circumstances that bore the
+distressing stamp of insanity in one of them, a taint of madness that
+was in the blood which had been so prolific of genius. He suffered where
+he was strongest and weakest&mdash;in his love and his pride.</p>
+
+<p>His spirit would have been invincible if his heart had not been broken.
+No husband and father was ever more solicitous for the welfare of wife
+and children. The death of his wife, followed by the disasters that
+overtook his sons, wounded him as mortally as if a flight of arrows had
+pierced him. The very contingencies of fortune against which he thought
+he had provided with infinite painstaking, fell upon him as if from
+clouds in a sky he thought clear. His deepest resolution was that, after
+the long strain of facing the total loss of fortune during the dark
+years of the cable enterprise, he never again would consent to take the
+chances of the catastrophe that had haunted him, and from which he had
+escaped at such hazard that the fortunate interposition seemed
+miraculous; and he did not consciously do the wrong to himself and dear
+ones he had with such anxiety sought to avoid. His misfortunes were as
+incalculable as incurable.</p>
+
+<p>The family affection of the Fields is one of their distinctions, and the
+love the four brothers, known to all the world, bore each other, was as
+gentle and full of all happiness as that of children. The "little acts
+of kindness, little deeds of love," that, as the old hymn says, would
+make the world an Eden, were never wanting. The festivals in which they
+delighted were those of the family&mdash;the eightieth birthday of the oldest
+brother&mdash;the golden wedding. In his long travels, Mr. Field was ever
+thoughtful of home, and it was like him, giving a dinner to a company of
+Americans in Edinburgh, to telegraph to their families so that each
+guest found the news of that day, from his own fireside, in a cablegram
+on his plate.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Field was no doubt attracted to Iceland, in 1874, by his studies of
+the northern waters; the way the world tapers off in the high latitudes,
+and the fact that Iceland must have been often in his mind as he studied
+Newfoundland and Ireland, and knew that Iceland was so near Greenland as
+to belong to the American continent, and to have been a stepping-stone
+from Norway to Labrador. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page360" name="page360"></a>(p. 360)</span> He was regarded by the Icelanders as
+almost as great a man as the King of Denmark, who visited his remote
+possession at the same time; and they thought Field even a greater
+discoverer than Columbus, for they said the Genoese navigator got his
+knowledge of the land in the west from their ancestors, and sailed on a
+certainty.</p>
+
+<p>On the day President Garfield was shot down, he was on his way to
+Williams College, and was to dine that night with Mr. Cyrus Field at
+Ardsley, and go to the old place he called "the sweetest in the world"
+next day. A yacht was waiting to convey the President from Jersey City,
+when the news of the assassination became known. The President suffered
+mentally because he had not made adequate provision for his family, and
+Mr. Field headed a subscription list with a liberal sum, and in a few
+days had a quarter of a million dollars safely invested for Mrs.
+Garfield and her children. The motive of this timely and apt generosity
+was, first, to afford consolation to the dying chief magistrate.</p>
+
+<p>It was within the scope of the ambition of Mr. Field to span the Pacific
+as well as the Atlantic Ocean with a cable; but having triumphantly
+overcome one ocean, he failed to put a girdle round the earth, as De
+Lesseps, having succeeded with the Suez Canal&mdash;the only work of the age
+to be named with the Atlantic telegraph&mdash;failed at Darien.</p>
+
+<p>If the prosperity of Mr. Field had continued, and the light had not gone
+out in his home, he would not have been content until he had ransacked
+the globe for ways and means to have followed the sun to Asia with the
+telegraph. His footsteps point the way, and the road to India is
+westward.</p>
+
+<p>The golden wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus W. Field was attended by
+hundreds of those who knew and loved them, and the great double house of
+the Fields, fronting on Gramercy Park, was full of bright faces and
+glittering with lights. The historic home was soon darkened and made
+desolate. The master, the renowned victor&mdash;no name more certain of an
+honorable immortality than his&mdash;was one whom "unmerciful disaster
+followed fast and followed faster." His wife passed away at Ardsley
+before the deeper gloom of the storm, and he died there July 12, 1892.
+In his delirium on the morning of his death, he was again on the stormy
+coast with the cable fleet; and he said: "Hold those ships&mdash;do not let
+them sail yet." Through the centuries there had descended to him from
+the old astronomer, his ancestor, the far-flashing conception of
+enterprise and understanding of the splendor of destiny that was his
+star, and mingled with its light were the gentle influences of the
+religion of his fathers, always to him real and radiant. He sleeps well,
+amid the scenes where he passed his boyhood, and for which his heart
+yearned always&mdash;beside his beloved wife; and carved in the marble of
+their tomb as the last testimony to the loving heart of his companion,
+are the words: "Love is eternal." The recollection of his sorrows will
+not, as the centuries come and go, dim the beautiful light of his
+illustrious name.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig013" name="sig013"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig013.jpg" width="250" height="50" alt="Author signature. Murat Halstead." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page361" name="page361"></a>(p. 361)</span> QUEEN VICTORIA<br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Donald Macleod, D.D.</span><br>
+
+(BORN 1819-1901)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img036" name="img036"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img036.jpg" width="250" height="364" alt="Queen Victoria." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Well do I remember the effect produced on the audience of students, of
+which I was then one, when Lord Macaulay delivered his Rectorial address
+in the University of Glasgow, and when, after giving such pictures as he
+alone could paint, of the character of the four centuries that had
+closed since the university had been founded&mdash;each epoch presenting a
+scene of bloodshed and misgovernment&mdash;he sketched the possible future of
+the college, and anticipated the time when coming generations would tell
+how certain contemplated changes had been accomplished during the reign
+of "the Good Queen Victoria." The phrase was accentuated by an
+oratorical swing; and when it was given, the tremendous burst of
+enthusiasm showed that they who listened felt the great historian had
+chosen the right epithet, and that he intended it in the sense that, as
+some monarchs are called "Great" and some "Little," so for all time
+Victoria would be named "the Good Queen." This was said more than forty
+years ago, before Tennyson had fixed the "Household name," "Albert the
+Good," for</p>
+
+<p class="poem30">
+<span class="add10em">"That star</span><br>
+  Which shone so close beside Thee, that ye made<br>
+  One light together."</p>
+
+<p>The epoch in our history which is embraced between the years 1837 and
+1887, is unparalleled. At no time in the history of the nation, or of
+the world, has there been such rapid and beneficent progress. We, who
+are citizens of "the old country," scarcely realize the extent of our
+dominion. The Roman Empire was one-fourth its size; all the Russias
+contain an eighth less; it is sixteen times as large as France, and
+three times as large as the United States. The United Kingdom, with its
+colonies and dependencies, includes about one-fifth of the entire globe.
+The rapidity with which population has grown in some parts of our
+dominion may be measured by Australasia, which in 1837 had 134,059, and
+in 1885, 3,278,934, or twenty-three times as many more. When we turn
+from these figures to consider other fields of progress, we are still
+more amazed. It goes without saying that these last fifty years have
+seen the growth of railways <span class="pagenum"><a id="page362" name="page362"></a>(p. 362)</span> and steamships from their infancy
+to their present world-embracing influence. The mileage of railways open
+in the United Kingdom in 1837 was about 294 miles, but a great
+proportion was worked by horses. In 1885 the mileage was 19,169, the
+gross receipts, £69,555,774; they carried about 1,275,000,000
+passengers, and employed 367,793 men. Not a steamer had crossed the
+Atlantic by steam alone when the queen came to the throne, and her
+accession was in the year previous to that during which Wheatstone in
+this country, and Morse in America, introduced electric telegraphy. We,
+who enjoy express trains, six-penny telegrams, half-penny post-cards,
+and the parcel post, can scarcely realize that we are so near the time
+when mail-coaches and sailing-packets were almost the only means of
+conveyance, and when postage was a serious burden. The greatness of the
+changes in social life may be realized when we remember that, so
+recently as 1844, duelling was banished from the code of honor; that
+crime has diminished seventy-one per cent. since 1837; and that while
+fifty years ago Government did nothing for education, there are now
+30,000 public schools under the Privy Council. These facts are
+suggestive of the extent of the advance. Or if, without touching on the
+marvellous victories of science, we try to form an estimate of religious
+progress, and take the tables for Protestant missions as giving a fair
+indication of the zeal and self-sacrifice of the churches, we find that
+while British contributions in 1837 amounted to £316,610, in 1885 they
+reached £1,222,261.</p>
+
+<p>It may be said with truth that the progress thus indicated must have
+gone on, no matter who sat on the throne; but it would be unjust not to
+recognize the close influence which the Crown has directly and
+indirectly exercised on its advance. There has been no movement tending
+to the development of the arts and the industries of the country which
+has not enlisted the active sympathy of the royal family. From the first
+the Prince Consort recognized the important part which the sovereign
+could fulfil in reference to the peaceful victories of science and art.
+Beginning with agriculture&mdash;the improvement of stock and the better
+housing of agricultural laborers, we trace the effect of his constant
+toil in the series of industrial triumphs, of which the great exhibition
+of 1851 was the magnificent precursor; and, in recent years, the same
+kind of objects have always enlisted the best energies of the queen and
+her children.</p>
+
+<a id="img037" name="img037"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img037.jpg" width="400" height="518" alt="" title="">
+<p>Victoria greeted as Queen.</p></div>
+
+<p>The contrast is great and touching between the scene in Westminster
+Abbey, when, amid the pomp of a gorgeous ceremonial and the acclamation
+of her subjects, the fair girl-queen received the crown of Britain, and
+that other scene, when, after fifty years of a government that has been
+unblemished, she once more kneels in the same spot&mdash;a widow surrounded
+by her children and her children's children, bearing the burden of many
+sad as well as blessed memories, and encompassed with the thanksgivings
+of the three hundred millions of her subjects. We can imagine how
+oppressive, for one so loving, must then be the vision of the past, as
+she recalls, one after another, the once familiar and dear faces which
+greeted her coronation, those relatives, great ministers of state, and
+warriors of whom so few survive; and when all her happy married years
+and the years of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page363" name="page363"></a>(p. 363)</span> parting and desolation appear in vivid
+retrospect. But if ever monarch had cause to bless God for His tender
+mercies, it must be she who can combine with the memory of her own
+life's hopes and trials the consciousness that, in the great work given
+her as a sovereign, she has been enabled to fulfil the beautiful desire
+of her innocent childhood, when, on her first being informed of her
+royal destiny, she indulged in no vain dream of power, but uttered the
+simple longing "to be good." That goodness has been her real greatness.</p>
+
+<p>The life of her majesty is marked by three great stages&mdash;her youth, her
+married life, and her widowhood. Each is bound to each by the tie of a
+consistent growth, passing through those experiences which are typical
+of God's education of His children, whether high or low, rich or poor.</p>
+
+<p>Her childhood, with its wise education, is very much the key to her
+after-life. Possessed naturally of a quick intellectual capacity, and an
+unusually accurate memory, a taste for music and the arts, and a deeply
+affectionate heart, she was admirably brought up by her mother, the
+Duchess of Kent, on whom the training of the future queen devolved from
+her infancy. If the education was as high as it was possible to afford a
+young and intelligent spirit, the moral influences were equally
+beneficial. The young princess, instead of being isolated within the
+formalities of a court, was allowed to become acquainted with the wants
+and sufferings of the poor, and to indulge her sympathies by giving them
+personal help. The contrast was a great one between the court of George
+IV., or even that of William, and the truly English home where the
+Duchess of Kent nurtured this sweet life in all that was simple, loving,
+and pure. There could scarcely have been a better school for an
+affectionate nature. All that we learn of her majesty at that time gives
+a consistent picture of great vivacity, thorough directness in her
+search after truth, warmth of heart, and considerateness for others,
+with a genuine love for all that is morally good. These were the
+characteristics which impressed those who saw her on the trying occasion
+when she was suddenly ushered into the foremost place in the greatest
+empire in the world. It was these characteristics which touched the
+hearts of the good archbishop and of the Chancellor of England when they
+announced her great destiny to the girl suddenly summoned from slumber.
+That first request, "My Lord Archbishop, pray for me!" revealed the
+depth of her character. It was the same when she had next day to pass
+through the ordeal of meeting the great councillors of state for the
+first time. Lord Melbourne, the Duke of Wellington, Peel, and the
+keen-eyed Secretary Greville, all felt the beautiful combination of
+dignity with unaffected simplicity, and of quick intelligence with royal
+courtesy. But they did not see the episode which followed the fatigue
+and excitement of the long formalities of the council, when the young
+queen rushed first of all to her mother's arms, there to indulge her
+feelings in a burst of tears, and then, with girlish naïveté, claiming
+the exercise of her royal prerogative to procure for herself two hours
+of absolute solitude.</p>
+
+<p>The earlier years of her reign were happily blessed with the wise and
+beneficent influence of Lord Melbourne. His relationship to the youthful
+sovereign <span class="pagenum"><a id="page364" name="page364"></a>(p. 364)</span> was more that of a father and able political
+instructor than of a formal first minister of the crown. He was too
+experienced not heartily to appreciate the beautiful character of his
+young mistress, and the interest he took in her political education, and
+in everything likely to further her prosperity and happiness, was
+evidently kindled by warm affection. She was equally favored in having
+as adviser so sagacious a relative as her uncle Leopold, the late King
+of the Belgians. The Duke of Wellington regarded her almost as a
+daughter; and there was also, ever at hand, another, whose trained
+intellect and loyal heart exercised no little influence on her
+career&mdash;Baron Stockmar&mdash;to whose lofty ideal of the functions of
+royalty, calmly balanced treatment of all questions of state policy, and
+high-toned moral sympathies, both the queen and the prince consort have
+amply expressed their indebtedness.</p>
+
+<p>Without touching further on the earlier period of her reign, which was
+not without many incidents of interest, we turn to the married years of
+the queen as to a bright and sunny memory.</p>
+
+<p>The position of an unmarried or widowed queen necessarily entails a
+peculiar loneliness. She is surrounded by the rigorous demands of state
+necessity. If she has to form a judgment upon documents submitted to
+her, there is no one so close to her and so independent of all other
+influences as to be truly an <i>alter ego</i>. Faithful servants of the crown
+may do their best to be of use, but no one of them can be so near as to
+receive such unguarded confidences as can be given to the husband who
+shares every joy and sorrow. The queen's married life was ideally
+perfect. She married the man she loved, and each year deepened her early
+affection into an admiration, a reverence, and a pride which elevated
+her love into consecration.</p>
+
+<p>There was no home in England made more beautiful by all that was tender,
+cultured, and noble than that in which "the blameless prince" fulfilled
+his heroic career of duty, and shed the bright light of his joyous,
+affectionate, and keenly intellectual life. There were few homes in
+which a greater amount of trying and anxious work was more
+systematically accomplished, or in which there was a more exquisite
+blending of hard thinking with the enjoyment of the fine arts and the
+fulness of loving family happiness. We have picture after picture given
+us in the life of the Prince Consort which puts us in touch with these
+brilliant years, when the queen and he were never parted but for one or
+two brief intervals. Early hours of close labor were followed by a
+genial and hearty relaxation, and at every turn the wife and sovereign
+felt the blessedness of that presence which ministered to her in
+sickness with the gentleness of a woman, and which she leaned upon in
+hours of difficulty with complete trust in the strength and trueness of
+his wise intellect. There was no decrease on either side in those
+feelings and utterances of feeling which are so beautiful when they
+carry into after years the warmth of the first attachment, only hallowed
+and deepened by experience.</p>
+
+<a id="img038" name="img038"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img038.jpg" width="600" height="365" alt="" title="">
+<p>Windsor Castle.</p></div>
+
+<p>There were many fresh features in the kind of life which was introduced
+by the queen and the consort into the habits of the court. Among these
+none <span class="pagenum"><a id="page365" name="page365"></a>(p. 365)</span> were more marked than the breaking up of that monotony
+which the restrictions that hitherto prevailed as to the residence of
+the royal family in one or two state palaces entailed. We can well
+understand how the Empress Eugénie should have found the Tuileries, in
+spite of its grandeur, no better than "<i>une belle prison</i>," and her
+delight at the comparative freedom she enjoyed at Windsor. The queen and
+Prince Consort inaugurated a new era in the customs of the court by
+taking advantage of the facilities afforded by modern methods of
+conveyance. Scarcely any part of the country celebrated for scenery, or
+any town famous for its industries, remained unvisited by them.</p>
+
+<p>The beneficial effects of these journeys were great. Loyalty is to a
+large extent a personal matter, and is necessarily deepened when the
+representative of the state not only possesses moral dignity of
+character but comes frequently into contact with the people. It is also
+of use to the crown that its wearer should know, from actual
+observation, the conditions of life in the country. It is in the light
+of this mutual action of acquaintance between prince and people that we
+estimate the value of that knowledge which the Prince of Wales, his
+brothers, and his sons have gained of so many parts of the empire. The
+Prince Consort felt keenly the use of these influences. "How important
+and beneficent," he once said, "is the part given to the royal family of
+England to act in the development of those distant and rising countries,
+who recognize in the British crown and their allegiance to it, their
+supreme bond of union with the mother country and to each other!"</p>
+
+<p>During each year of their married life the queen and Prince Consort went
+on some interesting tour. In England, Oxford and Cambridge, Birmingham,
+Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, received royal visits, while such
+historical houses as Chatsworth, Hatfield, Stowe, and Strathfieldsay
+were honored by their presence. Ireland was thrice visited. Wales more
+than once. The first visit to Scotland was made in 1842, another in
+1844, and from 1847 only one year passed without a long residence in the
+north&mdash;first at Ardverachie, on Loch Laggan, and then at what was to be
+their Highland home on Deeside. Repeated visits were also made to the
+Continent, sometimes in state and sometimes in as much privacy as could
+be commanded.</p>
+
+<p>It is when we come to this bright time, so full of fresh interest and of
+a delightful freedom, that we have the advantage of the queen's own
+"Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands." Her visit to
+Edinburgh in 1842, and the drive by Birnam and Aberfeldy to Taymouth,
+and the splendor of the reception, when, amid the cheers of a thousand
+Highlanders and the wild notes of the bagpipes, she was welcomed by Lord
+Breadalbane, evidently stirred every feeling of romance. "It seemed,"
+she wrote, "as if a great chieftain of olden feudal times was receiving
+his sovereign." It appeared like a new world, when, throwing off for a
+time the restrictions of state, she found herself at Blair two years
+afterward, climbing the great hills of Atholl, and from the top of
+Tulloch looking forth on the panorama of mountain and glen. "It was
+quite romantic; here we were with only this Highlander behind us holding
+the ponies, not a house, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page366" name="page366"></a>(p. 366)</span> not a creature near us but the pretty
+Highland sheep, with their horns and black faces. It was the most
+delightful, most romantic, ride and walk I ever had." These early visits
+to Scotland inspired her with her love for the Highlands and the
+Highlanders. She found there quite a world of poetry. The majestic
+scenery, the fresh, bracing air, the picturesqueness of the kilted
+gillies, the piping and the dancing, and the long days among the
+heather, recalled scenes which Sir Walter Scott has glorified for all
+time, and which are especially identified with the fortunes of the
+unhappy Stuarts, of whom she is now the nearest representative.</p>
+
+<p>It was in 1848 that the court proceeded for the first time to Balmoral,
+then a picturesque but small castle. The air of Deeside had been
+recommended by Sir James Clark, the queen's physician, and his
+anticipation of the benefits to be derived from residence there was so
+completely realized that although four years passed before the property
+was actually purchased, yet preparations were made for establishing
+there a royal home. Plans for the future castle and for laying out the
+grounds were gone into by the prince with keen delight. "All has become
+my dear Albert's own creation, own work, own building, own laying out,
+as at Osborne; and his great taste and the impress of his dear hand have
+been stamped everywhere."</p>
+
+<p>It was here that the queen and the Prince Consort enjoyed for more than
+twelve years a delightful freedom, mingling with their people, devising
+the wisest methods for insuring their well-being, going with them to
+worship in their plain (very plain!) parish church, and being to each
+and all unaffectedly sincere friends. Every spot around soon became
+consecrated by some sweet association. Every great family event had its
+commemoration amid the scenery around the castle; though many a cairn,
+once raised in joy, is now, alas! a monument of sorrow. The life at
+Balmoral was in every sense beneficial. There never has been there the
+kind of relaxation that comes from idleness. Systematic work has been
+always maintained at Balmoral as at Windsor. Early hours in the fresh
+morning and a regular arrangement of time during the day have given room
+for the constant business of the crown; but every now and then there
+were glorious "outings," whether for sport or for some far-reaching
+expedition, which gave fresh zest to happy and united toil.</p>
+
+<p>There is more than one characteristic of the queen which may recall to
+Scotchmen the history of their own Stuarts, and among these is her
+enjoyment of expeditions <i>incognita</i>. The Prince Consort, with his
+simple German heart, entered fully into the "fun" of such journeys, as,
+starting off on long rides across mountain-passes and through swollen
+burns and streams, lunching on heights from which they could gaze far
+and wide over mountain and strath, they would reach some little roadside
+inn, and there, assuming a feigned name, had the delight of feeling
+themselves "private people," while the simple fare and the ridiculous
+<i>contretemps</i> which frequently occurred were enjoyed the more keenly
+because of their contrast to accustomed state. And during all these
+years their domestic life was unbroken by any great family sorrow. It
+was not till a year <span class="pagenum"><a id="page367" name="page367"></a>(p. 367)</span> before her great bereavement that the
+queen lost her mother, the Duchess of Kent. Few can read the account of
+that sorrowful parting without being drawn nearer to the sovereign by
+the tie of a common humanity, so deep and tender is the affection that
+is revealed.</p>
+
+<p>But till 1861 the queen was surrounded by all those who were dearest to
+her, and she and the prince shared the sweet task of superintending
+their children's education. Few parents more anxiously considered the
+best methods for securing a sound moral and religious training. "The
+greatest maxim of all," writes the queen, "is that the children shall be
+brought up as simply and in as domestic a way as possible, that (without
+interfering with their lessons) they should be as much as possible with
+their parents, and learn to place their greatest confidence in them in
+all things." As to religious training, the queen's conviction was that
+it is best when given to a child "day by day at his mother's knee." It
+was only the great pressure of public duty which rendered it impossible
+for her to fulfil her part so completely as she desired. "It is a hard
+case for me," her majesty writes, in reference to the princess royal,
+"that my occupations prevent me being with her when she says her
+prayers."</p>
+
+<p>The religious convictions of the queen and the Prince Consort were deep.
+They both cared little for those mere accidents and conventionalities of
+religion which so many magnify into essentials. The prince, eminently
+devout, insisted on the realities of religion. "We want not what is
+safe, but true," was his commentary on the exaggerated outcry against
+"Essays and Reviews." "The Gospel, and the unfettered right to its use,"
+was his claim for Protestantism. For his own spirit, like that of the
+queen, was truly religious. The quiet evenings spent together before
+communion, and the directness and reverence with which both served God
+were combined with an utter abhorrence of all intolerance. Such
+qualities are generally misunderstood by the narrow-minded, who have
+only their own "shibboleths" to test all faith, and the one
+Church&mdash;whatever it may be&mdash;that they regard as "true." The queen and
+the prince rose above such distinctions; they shared the Catholicism of
+St. Paul, "Grace be with all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in
+sincerity."</p>
+
+<p>But these bright and happy years were doomed to a sudden ending. It is
+only when we have realized all that her husband was to her that we can
+measure how fearful was the blow to her loving heart when he who was her
+pride and her constant companion was laid low. We may well feel what a
+shattering it brought to all that hitherto had enriched her life, and
+how very desolate her position became when she was left in loneliness on
+the throne, a widow separated by her queendom from many of those
+supports which others find near them, but from which she was deprived by
+her position. "Fourteen happy and blessed years have passed," she wrote,
+in 1854, "and I confidently trust many more will pass, and find us in
+old age as we now are, happily and devotedly united. Trials we must
+have, but what are they if we are together?" In God's wisdom that hope
+was not to be realized, and in 1861 the stroke fell, and it fell with
+crushing power.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page368" name="page368"></a>(p. 368)</span> It is not for us to lift the curtain of sorrow that fell like a
+funeral pall over the first years of her widowhood. For many a day it
+seemed as if the grief was more than she could bear, and although she
+was sustained through it all by God's grace, and supported by the
+sympathy of the nation, yet it was naturally a long-continued and
+absorbing sorrow. Other blows have fallen since then. The tender and
+wise Princess Alice, and the thoughtful and cultured Duke of Albany,
+have also been gathered to their rest; and the queen has had to mourn
+over one after another of her most faithful servants taken from her. But
+the hallowing hand of time, the soothing remembrance of unspeakable
+mercies, and the call to noble duty, have done much to restore the
+strength, if not the joy, of former days. Her people rejoice, and the
+influence of the Crown is enormously strengthened, when in these later
+years the queen has been able once more to mingle with the nation.</p>
+
+<p>When we touch on the third period of her life&mdash;which may well be termed
+that of sorrow, although brightened by many happy events in the domestic
+life of her children&mdash;we reach times that are familiar to every reader.
+These have been years in which the cares of state have often been
+exceedingly burdensome. The days of anxiety during the Crimean War and
+the Indian Mutiny have more than once had their counterpart.
+Afghanistan, Zululand with its Isandula, and the Transvaal War with its
+Majuba Hill, Egypt, and the Soudan, brought hours of sore anxiety to the
+sovereign; but they were probably not more harassing to intellect and
+heart than the months of difficult diplomacy which the threatening
+aspect of European politics frequently laid upon Government.</p>
+
+<p>I may say in passing that no portrait of her appears to me to be quite
+satisfactory. They usually have only one expression, that of sadness and
+thoughtfulness, and so far they give a true representation; for when
+there is nothing to rouse her interest and when she is silent, that look
+of sadness is doubtless what chiefly impresses one. Her face then bears
+the traces of weary thought and of trying sorrow; but when she is
+engaged in conversation, and especially if her keen sense of humor has
+been touched, her countenance becomes lit with an exceedingly engaging
+brightness, or beams with heartiest laughter.</p>
+
+<p>Her life at Balmoral since her great sorrow maintains, as far as may be,
+the traditions of the happy past. She still makes expeditions, <i>cognita</i>
+or <i>incognita</i>, sometimes to the scenes of former enjoyment or to new
+places of interest. She has in this way visited Blair, Dunkeld,
+Invermark, Glenfiddich, Invertrossachs, Dunrobin, Inverlochy, Inverary,
+Loch Marll, and Broxmouth.</p>
+
+<p>The queen, among her people at Balmoral, gives a splendid example to
+every landlord. "The first lady in the land" is the most gracious
+mistress possible. Her interest is no condescending "make-believe," as
+we sometimes find it in the case of others, who seek a certain
+popularity among their dependents by showing spasmodic attentions which
+it is difficult to harmonize with a prevailing indifference. With the
+queen it is the unaffected care of one who really loves her people, and
+who is keenly touched by all that touches them. She knows them all by
+name, and in the times of their sorrow they experience from her a
+personal <span class="pagenum"><a id="page369" name="page369"></a>(p. 369)</span> sympathy peculiarly soothing. There is indeed no part
+of the volumes she has given us more surprising than the minute
+knowledge she there shows of all the people who have been in any way
+connected with her. The gillies, guides, and gamekeepers, the maids who
+have served her, the attendants, coachmen, and footmen, are seldom
+mentioned without some notice of their lives being recorded as
+faithfully as is the case with peers and peeresses. How few mistresses
+are there who, burdened as she is with duty, would thus hold in kindest
+remembrance each faithful servant, become acquainted with their
+circumstances, and provide for them in age or in trial with generous
+solicitude. It is this rich humanity of feeling that is her noblest
+characteristic. The public are accustomed to see messages of sympathy
+sent by the queen in cases of disaster and of accident, but they cannot
+know how truly those calamities fall upon her own heart. As far as her
+life in the Highlands is concerned, she is now perhaps the best specimen
+we have of what the old Highland chieftain used to be, only that in her
+case we find the benefits of paternal government without its harsh
+severities. There is the same frank and hearty attachment to her
+dependents, the same intimate knowledge of each one of them, the same
+recognition of services. It is a queenly quality to recognize what is
+worthy, no matter what the rank may be. It was from this she placed so
+much confidence in her faithful attendant, John Brown. Her great
+kindness to him was her own generous interpretation of the long and
+loyal services of one who, for more than thirty years, had been personal
+attendant on the Prince Consort and herself, leading her pony during
+many a long day upon the hills, watching over her safety in London as
+well as on Deeside, and who, on more than one occasion, protected her
+from peril. "His attention, care and faithfulness cannot be exceeded,"
+she writes in the first volume of the "Leaves," "and the state of my
+health, which of late years has been sorely tried and weakened, renders
+such qualifications most valuable."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE<br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Lizzie Alldridge</span><br>
+
+(BORN 1820)</h3>
+
+
+<p>A very distinguished lady nurse, who has been in half the hospitals in
+Europe, once said to me: "To Florence Nightingale, who was my own first
+teacher and inspirer, we owe the wonderful change that has taken place
+in the public mind with regard to nursing. When I first began my
+hospital training, hospital nursing was thought to be a profession which
+no decent woman of any rank could follow. If a servant turned nurse, it
+was supposed she did so because she had lost her character. We have
+changed all that now. Modern nursing owes its first impulse to Florence
+Nightingale."</p>
+
+<a id="img039" name="img039"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img039.jpg" width="250" height="361" alt="Florence Nightingale." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page370" name="page370"></a>(p. 370)</span> I don't suppose that any of my young readers have ever seen a
+hospital nurse of the now nearly extinct Gamp type; but I have. I have
+seen her, coarse-faced, thick of limb, heavy of foot, brutal in speech,
+crawling up and down the stairs or about the wards, in dresses and
+aprons that made me feel (although quite well and with a good healthy
+appetite) as if I would not have my good dinner just then. These were
+the old-fashioned "Sairey Gamps." But Florence Nightingale has been too
+strong for even the immortal "Sairey." Go now through the corridors and
+wards of a modern hospital; every nurse you meet will be neat and trim,
+with spotless dress and cap and apron, moving quickly but quietly to and
+fro, doing her work with kindness and intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>It was in 1820, the year George the Third's long life quite faded out,
+that the younger of the two daughters of William Shore Nightingale was
+born at Florence, and named after that lovely city.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Nightingale, of Embley Park, Hampshire, and the Lea Hurst,
+Derbyshire, was a wealthy land-owner. He was of the Shores of
+Derbyshire, but inherited the fortune with the name of Nightingale
+through his mother. Lea Hurst, where Miss Nightingale passed the summer
+months of each year, is situated in the Matlock district, among bold
+masses of limestone rock, gray walls, full of fossils, covered with moss
+and lichen, with the changeful river Derwent now dashing over its stony
+bed, now quietly winding between little dales with clefts and dingles.
+Those who have travelled by the Derby and Buxton Railway will remember
+the narrow valleys, the mountain streams, the wide spans of high
+moorland, the distant ranges of hills beyond the hills of the district.
+Lea Hurst, a gable-ended house, standing among its own woods and
+commanding wonderful views of the Peak country, is about two miles from
+Cromford station.</p>
+
+<p>At Lea Hurst much of Florence Nightingale's childhood was passed. There
+she early developed that intense love for every living suffering thing,
+that grew with her growth, until it became the master-passion of her
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Florence Nightingale always retained her belief in animals. Many years
+after her name was known all over the world, she wrote: "A small pet
+animal is often an excellent companion for the sick, for long chronic
+cases especially." An invalid, in giving an account of his nursing by a
+nurse and a dog, infinitely preferred that of the dog. "Above all," he
+said, "it did not talk." Even Florence Nightingale's maimed dolls were
+tenderly nursed and bandaged.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Nightingale was a man singularly in advance of his time as regards
+the training of girls. The "higher education of women" was unknown to
+the general public in those days, but not to Mr. Nightingale. His
+daughter was taught mathematics, and studied the classics, history, and
+modern languages under her <span class="pagenum"><a id="page371" name="page371"></a>(p. 371)</span> father's guidance. These last were
+afterward of the greatest use to her in the Crimea. But she was no
+"learned lady;" only a well-educated Englishwoman all round. She was an
+excellent musician, and skilful in work with the needle; and the
+delicate trained touch thus acquired stood her in good stead, for the
+soldiers used to say that a wound which Miss Nightingale dressed "was
+sure to get well."</p>
+
+<p>She felt a strong craving for work, more even than the schools and
+cottages, the care of the young, the sick, and the aged (in which she
+followed her mother's example) could afford her at her father's home.
+Mrs. Browning tells us to</p>
+
+<p class="poem30">
+<span class="add6em">"Get leave to work</span><br>
+  In this world; 'tis the best you get at all."</p>
+
+<p>Florence Nightingale not only got leave to work, but did so, very
+quietly but very persistently. And so she became a pioneer for less
+courageous souls, and won for them also "leave to work." Taught by her
+father, she soon learned to distinguish between what was really good
+work and which mere make-believe. She had many opportunities, even as a
+child, of seeing really fine, artistic work both in science and art. She
+set up a high standard, and was never satisfied with anything short of
+the best, either in herself or others. It is a grand thing to know good
+work when you see it.</p>
+
+<p>The love of work, however, with Florence Nightingale, always went hand
+in hand with that love for every living thing in God's world which was
+born with her and which was never crowded out by all this education. As
+she grew up she more and more felt that helpfulness was the first law of
+her being; but her reason and intellect having been so carefully
+trained, she was thoroughly persuaded that, in order to help
+effectually, one must know thoroughly both the cause of suffering and
+its radical cure.</p>
+
+<p>The study of nursing had an irresistible attraction for her. Few people
+in England at that time valued nursing. Florence Nightingale was
+convinced that indifference arose from the all but absolute ignorance of
+what nursing should be, and she set herself to acquire the necessary
+knowledge to enable her to carry it out in the very best and most
+scientific way. She never lost an opportunity of visiting a hospital,
+either at home or abroad. She gave up the life of so-called "pleasure,"
+which it was then considered a young woman of her position ought to
+lead, and after having very carefully examined innumerable nursing
+institutions at home and abroad, at length went to the well-known Pastor
+Fliedner's Deaconesses, at Kaiserswerth, where she remained for several
+months.</p>
+
+<p>After leaving Kaiserswerth, Miss Nightingale was for a while with the
+Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, in Paris, so anxious was she to see how
+nursing was carried on under many different systems. It was during 1851,
+the year of the first Great Exhibition, that she was thus fitting
+herself practically for the great task that lay before her in the not
+very distant future.</p>
+
+<p>On her return to England, Miss Nightingale found a patient that required
+all her time and help of every kind. This patient was none other than
+the Sanatorium <span class="pagenum"><a id="page372" name="page372"></a>(p. 372)</span> in Harley Street for gentlewomen of limited
+means. Into the saving of this valuable institution Miss Nightingale
+threw all her energy, and for two or three years, hidden away from the
+outside world, she was working day and night for her poor suffering
+ladies, until at length she was able to feel that the Sanatorium was not
+only in good health, but on the high road to permanent success.</p>
+
+<p>Florence Nightingale's own health, however, gave way under the
+long-continued strain of anxiety and fatigue; she was obliged to leave
+the invalids for whom she had done so much, and go home for the rest and
+change she so sorely needed.</p>
+
+<p>Now, while Miss Nightingale had been quietly getting "Harley Street"
+into working order, the gravest and most terrible changes had taken
+place in the affairs of the nation, and not only in those of England,
+but in those of the whole of Europe. In 1851, when the first Great
+Exhibition was opened, all was peace&mdash;the long peace of forty years was
+still unbroken&mdash;people said it never was to be broken again, and that
+wars and rumors of wars had come to an end. So much for human
+foreknowledge. By the autumn of 1854, the horrors of the Crimean war had
+reached their climax. The <i>Times</i> was full, day by day, of the most
+thrilling and appalling descriptions of the hideous sufferings of our
+brave men&mdash;sufferings caused quite as much by the utter breakdown of the
+sanitary administration as by even the deadly battles and trenchwork;
+while every post was bringing agonizing private letters appealing for
+help.</p>
+
+<p>Men were wounded in the Crimea, the hospitals were far off at Scutari,
+the wide and stormy Black Sea had to be crossed to reach them; the
+stores of food, clothing, and medicine that might have saved many a life
+were at Varna, or lost in the Black Prince; the state of the great
+Barrack Hospital at Scutari was indescribably horrible; everybody was
+frantic to rush to the relief; no one knew what best to do; public
+feeling was at fever-heat. How could it be otherwise when William Howard
+Russell, the <i>Times</i> correspondent, was constantly writing such true but
+heartrending letters as this:</p>
+
+<p>"The commonest accessories of a hospital are wanting; there is not the
+least attention paid to decency or cleanliness; the stench is appalling;
+the fetid air can barely struggle out to taint the atmosphere, save
+through the chinks in the walls and roofs; and for all I can observe,
+these men die without the least effort being made to save them. Here
+they lie, just as they were let gently down on the ground by the poor
+fellows, their comrades, who brought them on their backs from the camp
+with the greatest tenderness, but who are not allowed to remain with
+them. The sick appear to be tended by the sick, and the dying by the
+dying."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Nightingale, who was then recovering from her Harley Street
+nursing, deeply felt the intensity of the crisis that was moving the
+whole nation; but, whereas the panic had driven most of the kind people
+who were so eager to help the army, nearly "off their heads," it only
+made hers the cooler and clearer. She wrote, offering her services to
+Mr. Sidney Herbert, afterward Lord Herbert, the minister for war, who,
+together with his wife, had long known her, and had recognized her
+wonderful organizing faculties, and her great practical experience.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page373" name="page373"></a>(p. 373)</span> It was on October 15th that she wrote to Mr. Herbert. On the
+very same day the minister had written to her. Their letters crossed.
+Mr. Herbert, who had himself given much attention to military hospitals,
+laid before Miss Nightingale, in his now historical letter, a plan for
+nursing the sick and wounded at Scutari.</p>
+
+<p>"There is, as far as I know," he wrote, "only one person in England
+capable of organizing and directing such a plan, and I have been several
+times on the point of asking you if you would be disposed to make the
+attempt. That it will be difficult to form a corps of nurses, no one
+knows better than yourself."</p>
+
+<p>After specifying the difficulty in finding not only good nurses, but
+good nurses who would be willing to submit to authority, he goes on: "I
+have this simple question to put to you. Could you go out yourself and
+take charge of everything? It is, of course, understood that you will
+have absolute authority over all the nurses, unlimited power to draw on
+the Government for all you judge necessary to the success of your
+mission; and I think I may assure you of the co-operation of the medical
+staff. Your personal qualities, your knowledge, and your authority in
+administrative affairs, all fit you for this position."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Nightingale at once concurred in Mr. Herbert's proposal. The
+materials for a staff of good nurses did not exist, and she had to put
+up with the best that could be gathered on such short notice.</p>
+
+<p>On the 21st, a letter by Mr. Herbert, from the War Office, told the
+world that "Miss Nightingale, accompanied by thirty-four nurses, will
+leave this evening. Miss Nightingale, who has, I believe, greater
+practical experience of hospital administration and treatment than any
+other lady in this country, has, with a self-devotion for which I have
+no words to express my gratitude, undertaken this noble but arduous
+work."</p>
+
+<p>A couple of days later there was a paragraph in the <i>Times</i> from Miss
+Nightingale herself, referring to the gifts for the soldiers that had
+been offered so lavishly: "Miss Nightingale neither invites nor refuses
+the generous offers. Her banking account is open at Messrs. Coutts's."
+On October 30th, the <i>Times</i> republished from the <i>Examiner</i> a letter,
+headed, "Who is Miss Nightingale?" and signed "One who has known her."
+Then was made known to the British public for the first time who the
+woman that had gone to the aid of the sick and wounded really was; then
+it was shown that she was no hospital matron, but a young and singularly
+graceful and accomplished gentlewoman of wealth and position, who had,
+not in a moment of national enthusiasm, but as the set purpose of her
+life from girlhood up, devoted herself to the studying of God's great
+and good laws of health, and to trying to apply them to the help of her
+suffering fellow-creatures.</p>
+
+<p>From October 30, 1854, the heroine of the Crimean war was Florence
+Nightingale, and the heroine of that war will she be while the English
+tongue exists and English history is read. The national enthusiasm for
+her was at once intense, and it grew deeper and more intense as week by
+week revealed her powers. "Less talent and energy of character, less
+singleness of purpose and devotion, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page374" name="page374"></a>(p. 374)</span> could never have combined
+the heterogeneous elements which she gathered together in one common
+work and labor of love."</p>
+
+<p>I met the other day a lady who saw something of Miss Nightingale just
+before she went out to the East. This lady tells me that Miss
+Nightingale was then most graceful in appearance, tall and slight, very
+quiet and still. At first sight her earnest face struck one as cold; but
+when she began to speak she grew very animated, and her dark eyes shone
+out with a peculiarly star-like brightness.</p>
+
+<p>This was the woman whose starting for the East was at once felt to be
+the beginning of better things; but so prejudiced were many good English
+people against women-nurses for soldiers, that Mrs. Jameson, writing at
+the time, calls the scheme "an undertaking wholly new to our English
+customs, much at variance with the usual education given to women in
+this country." She, sensible woman, one in advance of her day, hoped it
+would succeed, but hoped rather faintly. "If it succeeds," she goes on,
+"it will be the true, the lasting glory of Florence Nightingale and her
+band of devoted assistants, that they have broken down a 'Chinese wall
+of prejudices,' religious, social, professional, and have established a
+precedent which will, indeed, multiply the good to all time."</p>
+
+<p>The little band of nurses crossed the Channel to Boulogne, where they
+found the fisherwomen eager for the honor of carrying their luggage to
+the railway. This display, however, seemed to Miss Nightingale to be so
+out of keeping with the deep gravity of her mission, that, at her wish,
+it was not repeated at any of the stopping-places during the route. The
+Vectis took the nurses across the Mediterranean, and a terribly rough
+passage they had. On November 5th, the very day on which the battle of
+Inkermann was fought, the ship arrived at Scutari.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Nightingale and her nurses landed during the afternoon, and it was
+remarked at the time that their neat black dresses formed a strong
+contrast to those of the usual hospital attendants.</p>
+
+<p>The great Barrack Hospital at Scutari, which had been lent to the
+British by the Turkish Government, was an enormous quadrangular
+building, a quarter of a mile each way, with square towers at each
+angle. It stood on the Asiatic shore a hundred feet above the Bosphorus.
+Another large hospital stood near; the whole, at times, containing as
+many as four thousand men. The whole were placed under Miss
+Nightingale's care. The nurses were lodged in the southeast tower.</p>
+
+<p>The extent of corridors in the great hospital, story above story, in
+which the sick and wounded were at first laid on wretched palliasses, as
+close together as they could be placed, made her inspection and care
+most difficult. There were two rows of mattresses in the corridors,
+where two persons could hardly pass abreast between foot and foot. The
+mortality, when the <i>Times</i> first took up the cause of the sick and
+wounded, was enormous. In the Crimea itself there was not half the
+mortality in the tents, horrible as were the sufferings and privations
+of the men there.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page375" name="page375"></a>(p. 375)</span> "The whole of yesterday," writes one of the nurses a few days
+after they had arrived, "one could only forget one's own existence, for
+it was spent, first in sewing the men's mattresses together, and then in
+washing them, and assisting the surgeons, when we could, in dressing
+their ghastly wounds after their five days' confinement on board ship,
+during which space their wounds had not been dressed. Hundreds of men
+with fever, dysentery, and cholera (the wounded were the smaller
+portion) filled the wards in succession, from the overcrowded
+transports."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Nightingale's position was a most difficult one. Everything was in
+disorder, and every official was extremely jealous of interference. Miss
+Nightingale, however, at once impressed upon her staff the duty of
+obeying the doctors' orders, as she did herself. An invalids' kitchen
+was established immediately by her to supplement the rations. A laundry
+was added; the nursing itself, was, however, the most difficult and
+important part of the work.</p>
+
+<p>But it would take far too much space to give all the details of that
+kind but strict administration which brought comparative comfort and a
+low death-rate into the Scutari hospitals. During a year and a half the
+labor of getting the hospitals into working order was enormous, but
+before the peace arrived they were models of what such institutions may
+be.</p>
+
+<p>Speaking of Miss Nightingale in the hospital at Scutari, the <i>Times</i>
+correspondent wrote: "Wherever there is disease in its most dangerous
+form, and the hand of the spoiler distressingly nigh, there is that
+incomparable woman sure to be seen; her benignant presence is an
+influence of good comfort even amid the struggles of expiring nature.
+She is a ministering angel, without any exaggeration, in these
+hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor,
+every poor fellow's face softens with gratitude at the sight of her.
+When all the medical officers have retired for the night, and silence
+and darkness have settled down upon these miles of prostrate sick, she
+may be observed, alone, with a little lamp in her hand, making her
+solitary rounds. With the heart of a true woman and the manner of a
+lady, accomplished and refined beyond most of her sex, she combines a
+surprising calmness of judgment and promptitude and decision of
+character. The popular instinct was not mistaken, which, when she set
+out from England on her mission of mercy, hailed her as a heroine; I
+trust that she may not earn her title to a higher, though sadder,
+appellation. No one who has observed her fragile figure and delicate
+health can avoid misgivings lest these should fail."</p>
+
+<p>Public feeling bubbled up into poetry. Even doggerel ballads sung about
+the streets praised</p>
+
+<p class="poem30">
+  "The Nightingale of the East,<br>
+  For her heart it means good."</p>
+
+<p>Among many others, Longfellow wrote the charming poem, "The Lady with
+the Lamp," so beautifully illustrated by the statuette of Florence
+Nightingale at St Thomas's Hospital, suggested by the well-known
+incident recorded in a soldier's letter: "She would speak to one and
+another, and nod and smile to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page376" name="page376"></a>(p. 376)</span> many more; but she could not do
+it to all, you know, for we lay there by hundreds; but we could kiss her
+shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on our pillows again, content."</p>
+
+<div class="poem30">
+<p>"Lo! in that house of misery<br>
+  A lady with a lamp I see<br>
+<span class="add2em">Pass through the glimmering gloom.</span><br>
+<span class="add2em">And flit from room to room.</span></p>
+
+<p>"And slow, as in a dream of bliss,<br>
+  The speechless sufferer turns to kiss<br>
+<span class="add2em">Her shadow as it falls</span><br>
+<span class="add2em">Upon the darkening walls.</span></p>
+
+<p>"On England's annals, through the long<br>
+  Hereafter of her speech and song.<br>
+<span class="add2em">A light its rays shall cast</span><br>
+<span class="add2em">From portals of the past.</span></p>
+
+<p>"A lady with a lamp shall stand<br>
+  In the great history of the land.<br>
+<span class="add2em">A noble type of good</span><br>
+<span class="add2em">Heroic womanhood."</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the following spring Miss Nightingale crossed the Black Sea and
+visited Balaclava, where the state of the hospitals in huts was
+extremely distressing, as help of all kinds was even more difficult to
+obtain there than at Scutari. Here Miss Nightingale spent some weeks,
+until she was prostrated by a severe attack of the Crimean fever, of
+which she very nearly died.</p>
+
+<p>But at length the Crimean war came to an end. The nation was prepared to
+welcome its heroine with the most passionate enthusiasm. But Florence
+Nightingale quietly slipped back unnoticed to her Derbyshire home,
+without its being known that she had passed through London.</p>
+
+<p>Worn out with ill-health and fatigue, and naturally shrinking from
+publicity, the public at large has scarcely ever seen her; she has been
+a great invalid ever since the war, and for many years hardly ever left
+her house.</p>
+
+<p>But her energy has been untiring. She was one of the founders of the Red
+Cross Society for the relief of the sick and wounded in war. When the
+civil war broke out in America she was consulted as to all the details
+of the military nursing there. "Her name is almost more known among us
+than even in Europe," wrote an American. During the Franco-German war
+she gave advice for the chief hospitals under the Crown Princess, the
+Princess Alice, and others. The Children's Hospital, at Lisbon, was
+erected from her plans. The hospitals in Australia, India, and other
+places have received her care. A large proportion of the plans for the
+building and organization of the hospitals erected during the last
+twenty-five years in England, have passed through her hands.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen, who had followed her work with constant interest, presented
+her with a beautiful and costly decoration. The nation gave £50,000 to
+found the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page377" name="page377"></a>(p. 377)</span> Nightingale Home. In this home Miss Nightingale
+takes the deepest interest, constantly having the nurses and sisters to
+visit her, and learning from them the most minute details of its
+working. Great is evidently her rejoicing when one of her "Nightingales"
+proves to be a really fine nurse, such a one, for instance, as Agnes
+Jones, the reformer of workhouse nursing.</p>
+
+<p>This was the high position Florence Nightingale conquered for her
+fellow-women. Hundreds have occupied, and are still occupying, the
+ground she won for them. "And I give a quarter of a century's European
+experience," she goes on, "when I say that the happiest people, the
+fondest of their occupation, the most thankful for their lives, are, in
+my opinion, those engaged in sick nursing."</p>
+
+<p>Officials in high places, ever since the Crimean war, have sent Miss
+Nightingale piles, mountains one might say, of reports and blue books
+for her advice. She seems to be able to condense any number of them into
+half a dozen telling sentences; for instance, the mortality in Indian
+regiments, during times of peace, became exceedingly alarming. Reports
+on the subject were poured in upon her. "The men are simply treated like
+Strasbourg geese," she said in effect. "They eat, sleep, frizzle in the
+sun, and eat and sleep again. Treat them reasonably, and they will be
+well." She has written much valuable advice on "How to live and not die
+in India."</p>
+
+<p>Children's hospitals have also engaged much of her attention. You cannot
+open one of her books at hazard without being struck with some shrewd
+remark, that tells how far-reaching is her observation; as in this, on
+the playgrounds of children's hospitals: "A large garden-ground, laid
+out in sward and grass hillocks, and such ways as children like (not too
+pretty, or the children will be scolded for spoiling it), must be
+provided."</p>
+
+<p>Here, I am sorry to find, my space comes to an end, but not, I hope,
+before I have been able to sketch in some slight way what great results
+will assuredly follow, when Faith and Science are united in one person.
+In the days, which we may hope are now dawning, when these gifts will be
+united, not in an individual here and there, but in a large portion of
+our race, there will doubtless be many a devoted woman whose knowledge
+may equal her practical skill, and her love for God and her
+fellow-creatures, who will understand, even more thoroughly than most of
+us now can (most of us being still so ignorant), how deep a debt of
+gratitude is due to her who first opened for women so many paths of
+duty, and raised nursing from a menial employment to the dignity of an
+"Art of Charity"&mdash;to England's first great nurse, the wise, beloved, and
+far-seeing heroine of the Crimean war, the Lady of the Lamp, Florence
+Nightingale.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page378" name="page378"></a>(p. 378)</span> DR. LOUIS PASTEUR<a id="footnotetag21" name="footnotetag21"></a><a href="#footnote21" title="Go to footnote 21"><span class="small">[21]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Dr. Cyrus Edson</span><br>
+
+(1822-1895)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img040" name="img040"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img040.jpg" width="250" height="324" alt="Dr. Louis Pasteur." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Louis Pasteur, the Columbus of "the world of the infinitely little"&mdash;to
+quote the phrase of Professor Dumas&mdash;was born in the town of Dôle,
+France, on December 27, 1822. His father was an old soldier, decorated
+on the field of battle, who, after leaving the array, earned his bread
+as a tanner. In 1825 M. Pasteur moved from Dôle to the town of Arbois,
+on the borders of the Cuisance, where his son began his education in the
+communal college. The boy was exceedingly fond of fishing and of
+sketching, and it was not until he reached the age of fourteen that he
+began study in earnest. There being no professor of philosophy at
+Arbois, Louis Pasteur moved to Besançon, where he received the degree of
+<i>bachelier ès lettres</i> and was at once appointed as one of the tutors.
+Here he studied the course in mathematics necessary for admission into
+the École Normale, in Paris, which he entered in October, 1843. Already
+his passion for chemistry had shown itself, and he took the lectures in
+that science delivered by M. Dumas at the Sorbonne, and by M. Balard at
+the École Normale. It was but a short time before he became a marked man
+in his class, especially for his intense devotion to experiment. Thanks
+to M. Delafosse, one of the lecturers of the École Normale, his
+attention was turned to crystallography, and a note from the German
+chemist, Mitscherlich, communicated to the Academy of Sciences, set him
+on fire with curiosity. Mitscherlich declared: "The paratartrate and the
+tartrate of soda and ammonia have the same chemical composition, the
+same crystalline form, the same angles, the same specific weight, the
+same double refraction, and the same inclination of the optic axes.
+Dissolved in water, their refraction is the same. But while the
+dissolved tartrate causes the plane of polarized light to rotate, the
+paratartrate exacts no such action."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page379" name="page379"></a>(p. 379)</span> Pasteur at once instituted experiments resulting in the
+discovery of minute facets in the tartrate which gave it the power
+noted. He found in the paratartrate these facets existed, but that there
+was an equal admixture of right-and left-handed crystals, and the one
+neutralized the effect of the other. He also discovered the left-handed
+tartrate. These discoveries at the opening of Pasteur's career brought
+him at once to the front among the scientific men. He followed them with
+a profound investigation into the symmetry and dissymmetry of atoms, and
+reached the conclusion that in these lay the basic difference between
+inorganic and organic matter, between the absence of life and life.</p>
+
+<p>Nominated at the age of thirty-two as Dean of the Faculté des Sciences,
+at Lille, Pasteur determined to devote a portion of his lectures to
+fermentation. At that time ferments were believed to be, to quote
+Liebig, "Nitrogenous substances&mdash;albumin, fibrin, casein; or the liquids
+which embrace them&mdash;milk, blood, urine&mdash;in a state of alteration which
+they undergo in contact with air." Pasteur examined the lactic ferment
+and found little rods, 1/25000 inch in length, which nipped themselves
+in the centre, divided into two, grew to full length and divided again,
+and these living things he declared to be the active principles of the
+ferment. He made a mixture of yeast, chalk, sugar, and water, added some
+of the rods, and got fermentation. He then made a mixture of sugar,
+water, phosphate of potash, and magnesia, and introducing fresh cells,
+fermentation followed. Liebig's theory of the nitrogenous character of
+the ferment disappeared when fermentation was caused in a mixture having
+no nitrogenous elements.</p>
+
+<p>Pasteur had discovered that fermentation was a phenomenon of nutrition;
+it followed the increase and growth of the little rods. The next step
+was the discovery of the ferment of butyric acid, a species of vibrio
+consisting of little rods united in chains of two or three and possessed
+of movement. He found these vibrios lived without air. Further
+experiments showed there were ferments to which air was necessary,
+called by Pasteur the <i>ærobics</i>, and others to whom oxygen was fatal,
+the <i>anærobics</i>. He proved, also, by an exhaustive series of
+experiments, that what is called putrefaction of animal matter is the
+result of the combined work of the <i>ærobics</i> and the <i>anærobics</i>, which
+reduce that part not taken up by oxygen to dead organic matter, ready in
+its turn to form food for living things.</p>
+
+<p>His attention having been turned to the needs of the vinegar makers of
+Orleans, Pasteur began the examination of the ferment which produces
+vinegar from wine. He found this in the mycoderm aceto, a mould-like
+plant which has the power of developing acetic acid from alcohol. As the
+result of his investigation, the manufacturers of vinegar in France were
+able to do away with the cumbrous process they had long followed, and to
+make vinegar, not only more cheaply, but of very much better quality.
+But during these experiments Pasteur found the temperature of 65° C. was
+sufficient to kill the mycoderm. When, then, the wine makers of France
+appealed to him to investigate the "diseases" of wine, he was ready for
+the work.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page380" name="page380"></a>(p. 380)</span> Before this, however, he had examined the claims of Pouchet and
+others to their alleged discovery of spontaneous generation; in other
+words, the production of life. Ranging himself against them, Pasteur
+showed their experiments not to have been conclusive, simply because
+they had not succeeded in excluding the dust which contained germs of
+life in the shape of spores of microscopic plants.</p>
+
+<p>The "diseases" of wine produce sour wine, wine that "spirits," "greasy"
+wine, and bitter wine. Pasteur found each to be due to a different
+microscopic ferment, all of which could be killed by heat. He placed
+bottles of wine in a bath heated to 60° C., and invited the most
+experienced wine tasters of Paris to try them afterward. The result of
+the test was the unanimous verdict that the wines had not been injured
+in the least, and to-day these "diseases" of wine are a thing of the
+past.</p>
+
+<p>There are departments in France where the culture of the silk-worm is
+the principal industry of the inhabitants. In 1849 a strange disease,
+called pebrine, broke out among the worms; they were unable to moult and
+died before the cocoons were spun. It spread in the most alarming manner
+until, from a crop with an average of one hundred and thirty million
+francs a year, the production of silk went to less than fifty millions.
+The silk cultivators sent for eggs&mdash;seed is the technical name&mdash;to Italy
+and Greece, and for one season all went well. The next, the plague was
+as bad as ever. More than that, it spread to Italy, Spain, Greece, and
+Turkey, until Japan was the only silk-producing country where the worm
+was healthy. Societies and governments, as well as individuals, were
+aghast, for the silk industry of the world was on the verge of
+annihilation, and every remedy the mind of man could conceive was tried,
+only to be rejected. In France alone the loss in 1865 was over one
+hundred million francs.</p>
+
+<p>At the suggestion of Professor Dumas, the Government induced Pasteur to
+examine into the "disease." He had seen in a report on the epidemic made
+by M. de Quatrefages, that there were found in the diseased worms
+certain minute corpuscles only to be seen under the microscope. When in
+June, 1865, Pasteur arrived in the town of Alais, he found these
+corpuscles without difficulty. He traced them from the worm to the
+chrysalid, in the cocoon, and thence to the moth; he found worms hatched
+from the eggs laid by these moths invariably developed the corpuscles.
+He crushed a corpuscular moth in water, painted a mulberry leaf with it,
+fed it to a healthy worm, and the corpuscles developed. He hatched eggs
+from moths free from corpuscles and secured healthy worms. While working
+on the "disease," Pasteur discovered in 1867 that the mortality among
+the worms was in part due to another disease, the <i>flacherie</i>, and this
+he found was the result of imperfect digestion.</p>
+
+<a id="img041" name="img041"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img041.jpg" width="400" height="494" alt="" title="">
+<p>Pasteur in his Laboratory.</p></div>
+
+<p><i>Flacherie</i> was contagious, and was caused by the fermentation of the
+food eaten in the body of the worm. The causes of this fermentation, the
+condition of the leaves, the temperature, and others were pointed out.
+As the result of five years' work, Pasteur had restored the silk
+industry to its former position, and had shown that the microscopic
+examination of the moth laying the eggs to be hatched was a perfect
+safeguard against <i>pebrine</i> and <i>flacherie</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page381" name="page381"></a>(p. 381)</span> At the request of the emperor, Pasteur went to the Villa
+Vicentia, in Austria, belonging to the prince imperial. For ten years
+the silk harvest there had not paid the cost of the eggs.</p>
+
+<p>Although he was just recovering from an attack of paralysis brought on
+by overwork, Pasteur travelled to Austria, introduced his methods and
+the sale of the cocoons gave the villa a net profit of 26,000,000
+francs. No wonder it was said of him that his discoveries alone exceeded
+in money value to the French people the war indemnity paid by them to
+the Germans.</p>
+
+<p>Splenic fever, called <i>charbon</i> in France, had for years decimated the
+flocks in France, Italy, Russia, Egypt, Hungary, and Brazil. It attacked
+the horse and cow as well as the sheep, and human beings died of it when
+they developed malignant pustule. Many scientific men had studied it,
+but Dr. Davaine, in 1850, was the first to find in the blood of a sheep
+that had died of the disease, "little thread-like bodies about twice the
+length of a blood-corpuscle. These little bodies exhibit no spontaneous
+motion."</p>
+
+<p>Pasteur began the examination of splenic fever by securing some of the
+blood from an animal dying from it. In the work before him he associated
+with himself M. Joubert, one of his former pupils. A drop of the blood
+sown in the water of yeast&mdash;the medium used for cultures by Pasteur at
+that time&mdash;produced myriads of the rods, the bacilli or microbes. A drop
+of this taken at the end of twenty-four hours, and placed in a fresh
+flask of the medium, again produced thousands of the bacilli. Pasteur
+found that guinea-pigs inoculated from the first flask developed the
+fever, and the same result followed when the inoculation was from the
+twentieth. He had proved, then, that splenic fever was produced by the
+bacilli, by living organisms only to be seen with a powerful microscope.</p>
+
+<p>While working on the bacilli of splenic fever, Pasteur had isolated the
+bacillus of chicken cholera, had cultivated it and had inoculated
+chickens with it, developing the disease. He found that so long as the
+cultures were made from flask to flask within twenty-four hours, the
+virus of the disease, that is, the power of the bacilli to produce
+cholera in the fowls inoculated, remained the same and the fowl died.
+But he discovered that if a flask containing the bacilli were left
+exposed to the air for two weeks, and the fowls were then inoculated
+with bacilli from this flask, they became sick, but did not die.
+Following this up, he inoculated a hen that had recovered from a
+sickness so produced, with the bacilli in their strongest and most
+virulent form, and the hen showed no effect whatever. Then he took two
+hens, one fresh from the coop and the other well again after the
+sickness produced by the inoculation with the exposed bacilli, and
+inoculated both with the blood of a hen that was dying of chicken
+cholera. The first died, the second was affected. In other words,
+Pasteur had made the greatest discovery in physiology of this century.
+He had found it is possible to attenuate the virus of a virulent
+disease, and to use that virus so attenuated as a vaccine matter which
+will guard the animal vaccinated against the disease. He had taken
+Jenner's discovery, and proved it applied to other diseases besides
+small-pox.</p>
+
+<p>Pasteur's theory of the reason why any vaccine matter will have its
+prophylactic <span class="pagenum"><a id="page382" name="page382"></a>(p. 382)</span> effect, is this: He believes there is in the
+blood of any animal subject to a disease caused by bacilli some
+substance which is necessary to the sustenance of those bacilli; and
+when the bacilli, having an attenuated virus, are introduced, they
+slowly consume all of this substance.</p>
+
+<p>The substance being one which nature creates very slowly, no subsequent
+introduction of the bacilli, however virulent, can produce the disease
+until such time shall have elapsed that a new supply of the substance
+shall have been secreted. In this way he accounts for the fact that
+vaccination will protect from small-pox for a more or less defined
+period of time.</p>
+
+<p>Pasteur hastened to apply his discovery of the attenuation of the virus
+of chicken cholera to the virus of splenic fever. Here, however, he was
+met with a serious difficulty. The microbes of splenic fever, if left in
+the flask for forty-eight hours, developed bright spots, and gradually
+into these spots the bacilli themselves seemed to be absorbed. Pasteur
+found these spots were the spores or seeds of the microbes, and he also
+found that, while the bacilli could be killed easily in various ways,
+the spores possessed a much greater resistance. They could be dried, for
+example, and preserved in that state indefinitely. It was apparent that
+the oxygenation which attenuated the venom of the bacilli of chicken
+cholera was impossible with those of splenic fever if the bacilli of the
+latter disappeared within a week, leaving the spores behind. But Pasteur
+had discovered before this that, unless the temperature of a fowl were
+lowered artificially, inoculation with the microbes of splenic fever
+would not produce the disease. From this he argued that, as the heat of
+the fowl's body was sufficient to resist the contagion, the bacilli
+themselves must be extremely sensitive to variations in temperature. He
+tried the experiment and found, by lowering the temperature of the
+flasks containing the cultures, he could prevent the formation of the
+spores. He then attenuated the venom of the splenic bacilli as he had
+that of the fowl cholera, tried it on guinea-pigs, found they became
+sick and recovered; inoculated them with the bacilli of full strength,
+but with no result. Pursuing his experiments, he discovered that he
+could by using vaccine-attenuated bacilli, of unequal strength, cause
+any degree of sickness he pleased.</p>
+
+<p>In the early part of 1881 Pasteur agreed to hold a public exhibition of
+his vaccine for splenic fever, the animals to be supplied by the Society
+of Agriculture in Melun. The experiment was begun on May 5th. Pasteur
+inoculated twenty-four sheep, one goat, and six cows with six drops each
+of attenuated virus, and twelve days afterward he reinoculated them with
+a stronger virus. On May 31st he reinoculated the thirty-one animals
+with the strongest virus of splenic fever, and at the same time
+inoculated twenty-five sheep and four cows which had not been vaccinated
+as were the others. On June 2d over two hundred people assembled at the
+farm to see the result. The twenty-five sheep that had not been
+vaccinated all died before that evening. The non-vaccinated cows had
+intense fever and great swellings, and could scarcely stand up. On the
+other hand, the vaccinated sheep and cows were in full health and were
+feeding quietly. Pasteur had conquered splenic fever.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page383" name="page383"></a>(p. 383)</span> Having attenuated the virus of these bacilli, Pasteur began a
+series of experiments to determine whether the attenuated virus could be
+intensified until its former venom was obtained. This he succeeded in,
+and thus discovered what is probably the key to the solution of the
+problem of the periodicity of epidemics of contagious diseases, such as
+cholera. In 1882 Pasteur's attention was called to a new disease, swine
+fever (<i>rouget</i>), which was ravaging the herds of swine in France. He
+found the microbes, attenuated them, vaccinated the pigs, and secured
+the most favorable results. He also discovered that by passing the
+microbe of a disease through an animal not subject to that disease, he
+attenuated it so far as its effects on another were concerned.</p>
+
+<p>It was in 1880 that Pasteur first began his experiments in hydrophobia.
+Securing the saliva of a child suffering from the disease, he inoculated
+rabbits with it and they died in thirty-six hours. He examined the
+saliva and the blood of the rabbits, and found in both a new microbe (a
+minute disk having two points). He established by repeated experiments
+that hydrophobia is a disease of the nerves, that a portion of the
+medulla oblongata, or of the spinal cord, is very much more certain to
+produce the disease, when introduced into the blood or placed on the
+brain, than is the saliva. He succeeded at last in isolating the
+microbe, in making cultures of it, and then attenuating it, and in May,
+1884, he produced before a commission appointed by the Minister of
+Public Instruction the following results:</p>
+
+<p>Of six dogs unprotected by vaccination, three died as the results of
+bites of a dog violently mad. Of eight unvaccinated dogs, six died after
+extra-venous inoculation of rabic matter. Of five unvaccinated dogs, all
+died after inoculation, by trepanning, of the brain with rabic matter.
+Of twenty-three vaccinated dogs, not one was attacked with the disease
+after inoculation, in any fashion, with the most virulent rabic matter
+procurable.</p>
+
+<p>During his long and busy life Louis Pasteur has been honored after every
+fashion known to men. He has opened the gates of knowledge wider than
+they were ever opened before, and in his discovery of the germs of
+disease, and in his still more wonderful discovery of the possibility of
+attenuating those germs and converting them into vaccines, he has
+revolutionized all ideas of physiology. He is one of the greatest
+pioneers in science that has ever lived, and his work will make his name
+illustrious so long as men shall continue on this earth. The lesson of
+his life is the supreme value of experiment; for, as was once said of
+him by Professor Dumas, "Pasteur is never mistaken, because he never
+asserts anything he cannot show another man how to prove."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig014" name="sig014"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig014.jpg" width="300" height="118" alt="Author signature. Cyrus Edson." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page384" name="page384"></a>(p. 384)</span> GENERAL CHARLES GEORGE GORDON<br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Colonel R. H. Veitch, R.E.</span><br>
+
+1833-1885</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img042" name="img042"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img042.jpg" width="250" height="397" alt="General Charles George Gordon." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Charles George Gordon, known as Chinese Gordon, major-general, C.B.,
+royal engineers, fourth son of Lieutenant-general Henry William Gordon,
+royal artillery, and Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Enderby, of Croom's
+Hill, Blackheath, was born at Woolwich on January 28, 1833. He was sent
+to school at Taunton in 1843, and entered the Royal Military Academy at
+Woolwich in 1848. He obtained a commission in the royal engineers on
+June 23, 1852, and, after the usual course of study at Chatham was
+quartered for a short time at Pembroke Dock. In December, 1854, he
+received his orders for the Crimea, and reached Balaklava on January 1,
+1855. As a young engineer subaltern serving in the trenches, his daring
+was conspicuous, while his special aptitude for obtaining a personal
+knowledge of the movements of the enemy was a matter of common
+observation among his brother officers. He was wounded on June 6, 1855,
+and was present at the attack on the Redan on June 18th. On the
+surrender of Sebastopol Gordon accompanied the expedition to Kinburn,
+and on his return was employed on the demolition of the Sebastopol
+docks. For his services in the Crimea Gordon received the British war
+medal and clasp, the Turkish war medal, and the French Legion of Honor.</p>
+
+<p>In May, 1856, in company with lieutenant (now major-general) E. R.
+James, R.E., he joined Colonel (now General Sir) E. Stanton, R.E., in
+Bessarabia, as assistant commissioner for the delimitation of the new
+frontier line. This duty was completed in April, 1857, and he was then
+sent with Lieutenant James in a similar capacity to Erzeroum, where
+Colonel (now General Sir) Lintorn Simmons was the English commissioner
+for the Asiatic frontier boundary. The work was accomplished by the
+following October, when Gordon returned to England. In the spring of
+1858 he and Lieutenant James were sent as commissioners to the Armenian
+frontier to superintend the erection of the boundary posts of the line
+they had previously surveyed. This was finished in November, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page385" name="page385"></a>(p. 385)</span>
+and Gordon returned home, having acquired an intimate knowledge of the
+people of the districts visited.</p>
+
+<p>On April 1, 1859, Gordon was promoted captain, and about the same time
+appointed second adjutant of the corps at Chatham, a post he held for
+little more than a year, for, in the summer of 1860, he joined the
+forces of Sir James Hope Grant, operating with the French against China.
+He overtook the allied army at Tientsin, and was present in October at
+the capture of Pekin and the pillage and destruction of the emperor's
+summer palace. For his services in this campaign he received the British
+war medal with clasp for Pekin and a brevet majority in December, 1862.
+Gordon commanded the royal engineers at Tientsin, when the British
+forces remained there under Sir Charles Staveley, and while thus
+employed made several expeditions into the interior, in one of which he
+explored a considerable section of the great wall of China. In April,
+1862, he was summoned to Shanghai to assist in the operations consequent
+upon the determination of Sir Charles Staveley to keep a radius of
+thirty miles round the city clear of the rebel Taipings. Gordon took
+part as commanding royal engineer, in the storming of Sing-poo and
+several other fortified towns and in clearing the rebels out of
+Kah-ding. He was afterward employed in surveying the country round
+Shanghai.</p>
+
+<p>The Taiping rebellion was of so barbarous a nature that its suppression
+had become necessary in the interest of civilization. A force raised at
+the expense of the Shanghai merchants, and supported by the Chinese
+Government, had been for some years struggling against its prowess. This
+force, known as the "Ever Victorious Army," was defeated at Taitsan,
+February 22, 1863. Li Hung Chang, governor-general of the Kiang
+provinces, then applied to the British commander-in-chief for the
+services of an English officer, and Gordon was authorized to accept the
+command. He arrived at Sung Kiong and entered on his new duties as a
+mandarin and lieutenant-colonel in the Chinese service on March 24,
+1863. His force was composed of some three to four thousand Chinese,
+officered by 150 Europeans of almost every nationality and often of
+doubtful character. By the indomitable will of its commander this
+heterogeneous body was moulded into a little army, whose high-sounding
+title of "Ever Victorious" became a reality, and in less than two years,
+after thirty-three engagements, the power of the Taipings was completely
+broken and the rebellion stamped out. The maintenance of discipline was
+a perpetual struggle, and at one time there was a mutiny which was only
+quelled by shooting the ringleader on the spot. Before the summer of
+1863 was over, Gordon captured Kahpoo, Wokong, and Patachiaow, on the
+south of Soo-chow, the great rebel stronghold, and, sweeping round to
+the north, secured Leeku, Wanti, and Fusaiqwan, so that by October
+Soo-chow was completely invested. On November 29th the outworks were
+captured by assault and the city surrendered on December 6th. Gordon was
+always in front in all these storming parties, carrying no other weapon
+than a little cane. His men called it his "magic wand," regarding it as
+a charm that protected his life and led them on to victory.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page386" name="page386"></a>(p. 386)</span> When Soo-chow fell, Gordon had stipulated with the
+governor-general, Li, for the lives of the Wangs (rebel leaders). They
+were treacherously murdered by Li's orders. Indignant at this perfidy,
+Gordon refused to serve any longer with Governor Li, and when on January
+1, 1864, money and rewards were heaped upon him by the emperor, declined
+them all, saying that he received the approbation of the emperor with
+every gratification, but regretted most sincerely that, "owing to the
+circumstances which occurred since the capture of Soo-chow, he was
+unable to receive any mark of his majesty the emperor's recognition."</p>
+
+<p>After some months of inaction it became evident that if Gordon did not
+again take the field the Taipings would regain the rescued country. On
+the urgent representations of the British envoy at Pekin, Governor Li
+was compelled to issue a proclamation exonerating Gordon from all
+complicity in the murder of the Wangs. Gordon then reluctantly consented
+to continue his services, on the distinct understanding that in any
+future capitulation he should not be interfered with. In December, 1863,
+a fresh campaign was commenced, and during the following months no fewer
+than seven towns were captured or surrendered. In February, 1864, Yesing
+and Liyang were taken, but at Kintang Gordon met with a reverse and was
+himself wounded for the first time. He nevertheless continued to give
+his orders until he had to be carried to his boat. After some other
+mishaps he carried Chan-chu-fu by assault on April 27th. The garrison
+consisted of 20,000 men, of whom 1,500 were killed. This victory not
+only ended the campaign but completely destroyed the rebellion, and the
+Chinese regular forces were enabled to occupy Nankin in the July
+following. The large money present offered to Gordon by the emperor was
+again declined, although he had spent his pay promoting the efficiency
+of his force, so that he wrote home, "I shall leave China as poor as
+when I entered it." The emperor, however, bestowed upon him the yellow
+jacket, and peacock's feather of a mandarin of the first class, with the
+title of Ti-Tu, the highest military rank in China, and a gold medal of
+distinction of the first class. The merchants of Shanghai presented him
+with an address expressing their admiration of his conduct of the war.</p>
+
+<p>On his return home, in the beginning of 1865, he was made a C.B., having
+previously received his brevet as lieutenant-colonel in February, 1864.
+In September, 1865, he was appointed commanding royal engineer at
+Gravesend, and for the next six years carried out the ordinary duties of
+the corps, superintending the construction of the forts for the defence
+of the Thames. During this quiet and uneventful period of routine work
+he devoted his spare time to the poor and sick of the neighborhood,
+stinting himself that he might have larger means wherewith to relieve
+others. He took special interest in the infirmary and the ragged
+schools. He took many of the boys from the schools into his own house,
+starting them in life by sending them to sea, and he continued to watch
+the future progress of his kings, as he called them, with never-failing
+sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>In October, 1871, Gordon was appointed British member of the
+international commission at Galatz for the improvement of the navigation
+of the Sulina mouth <span class="pagenum"><a id="page387" name="page387"></a>(p. 387)</span> of the Danube, in accordance with the
+Treaty of Paris. During his tenure of this office he accompanied General
+Sir John Adye to the Crimea to report on the British cemeteries there.
+On his way back to Galatz, in November, 1872, he met Nubar Pasha at
+Constantinople, who sounded him as to his succeeding Sir Samuel Baker in
+the Soudan. The following year Gordon visited Cairo on his way home, and
+on the resignation of Sir Samuel Baker was appointed governor of the
+equatorial provinces of Central Africa, with a salary of £10,000 a year.
+He declined to receive more than £2,000.</p>
+
+<p>Gordon went to Egypt in the beginning of 1874, and left Cairo in
+February for Gondokoro, the seat of his government, travelling by the
+Suez-Swakin-Berber route. He reached Khartoum on March 13th, stopped
+only a few days to issue a proclamation and make arrangements for men
+and supplies, then, continuing his journey, arrived at Gondokoro on
+April 16th. The garrison of Gondokoro at this time did not dare to move
+out of the place except in armed bands; but in the course of a year the
+confidence of the natives had been gained, the country made safe, eight
+stations formed and garrisoned, the government monopoly of ivory
+enforced, and sufficient money sent to Cairo to pay all the expenses of
+the expedition. At the close of the year, having already lost by
+sickness eight members of his small European staff, Gordon transferred
+the seat of government from the unhealthy station, Gondokoro, to Laido.
+By the end of 1875 Gondokoro and Duffh had been joined by a chain of
+fortified posts, a day's journey apart, the slave-dealers had been
+dispersed, and a letter post organized to travel regularly between Cairo
+and the verge of the Albert Nyanza, over two thousand miles as the crow
+flies.</p>
+
+<p>Gordon had also visited Magungo, Murchison Falls, and Chibero, with a
+view to a further line of fortified posts, and he established for the
+first time, by personal observation, the course of the Victoria Nile
+into Lake Albert. Although he had accomplished a great work since his
+arrival, his efforts to put down the slave trade were thwarted by Ismail
+Pasha Yacoub, governor-general of the Soudan, and were likely to prove
+abortive so long as the Soudan remained a distinct government from that
+of the equatorial provinces. He, therefore, at the end of 1876, resigned
+his appointment and returned to England. Strong pressure was put upon
+him by the khédive to return, and on January 31, 1877, he left for
+Cairo, where he received the combined appointment of governor-general of
+the Soudan, Darfour, the equatorial provinces, and the Red Sea littoral,
+on the understanding that his efforts were to be directed to the
+improvement of the means of communication and the absolute suppression
+of the slave trade. Gordon first visited Abyssinia, where Walad el
+Michael was giving a great deal of trouble on the Egyptian frontier. He
+settled the difficulty for a time and travelled across country to
+Khartoum, where he was installed as governor-general, May 5th. After a
+short stay there he hastened to Darfour, which was in revolt; with a
+small force and rapid movements he quelled the rising, and, by the
+humane consideration he showed for the suffering people, won their
+confidence and pacified the province. Before this work was completely
+accomplished his attention <span class="pagenum"><a id="page388" name="page388"></a>(p. 388)</span> was called away by the
+slave-dealers, who, headed by Suleiman, son of the notorious Zebehr,
+with 6,000 armed men, had moved on Dara from their stronghold, Shaka.
+Gordon left Fischer on August 31, 1877, with a small escort, which he
+soon outstripped, and in a day and a half, having covered eighty-five
+miles on a camel, entered Dara alone, to the surprise of its small
+garrison. The following morning, attended by a small escort, he rode
+into the rebel camp, upbraided Suleiman with his disloyalty, and
+announced his intention to disarm the band and break them up. Gordon's
+fearless bearing and strong will secured his object, and Suleiman
+returned with his men to Shaka.</p>
+
+<p>They rose again; and Gordon's Italian aide, Gessi, after a year's
+marching and fighting, succeeded in capturing Suleiman, and some of the
+chief slave-dealers with him. They were tried as rebels and shot. The
+suppression of the slave trade had thus been practically accomplished
+when on July 1st news arrived of the deposition of Ismail and the
+succession of Tewfik, which determined Gordon to resign his appointment.
+On arriving at Cairo, the khédive induced him first to undertake a
+mission to Abyssinia to prevent, if possible, an impending war with that
+country. Gordon went, saw King John, at Debra Tabor, but could arrive at
+no satisfactory understanding with him, and was abruptly dismissed. On
+his way to Kassala he was made prisoner to King John's men and carried
+to Garramudhiri, where he was left to find his way with his little party
+over the snowy mountains to the Red Sea. He reached Massowah on December
+8, 1879, and on his return to Cairo, the khédive accepted his
+resignation. He arrived in England early in January, 1880. During his
+service under the khédive, Gordon received both the second-and
+first-class of the order of the Medjidieh.</p>
+
+<p>His constitution was so much impaired by his sojournings in so deadly a
+climate that his medical advisers sent him to Switzerland to recruit. He
+returned to England, in April, 1880, and in the following month
+accompanied the Marquis of Ripon, the new Viceroy of India, to that
+country as his private secretary. He resigned almost immediately, and
+was invited to China to advise the Chinese Government in connection with
+their then strained relations with Russia. Gordon accepted at once, and
+although difficulties were raised by the home authorities, he reached
+Hongkong on July 2d, and went on by Shanghai and Chefoo to Tientsin to
+meet his old friend, Li Hung Chang, who, with Prince Kung, headed the
+peace party. From Tientsin, Gordon went to Pekin, and his wise and
+disinterested counsels in favor of peace at length carried the day.</p>
+
+<p>In 1881 he went to Mauritius as commanding royal engineer, and while
+there was promoted major-general. In 1882, he was at the Cape Colony,
+endeavoring to arrange a peace with the natives of Basutoland; but he
+failed, largely through the treachery of the Cape officials.</p>
+
+<a id="img043" name="img043"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img043.jpg" width="600" height="392" alt="" title="">
+<p>Gordon attacked by El Mahdi's Arabs.</p></div>
+
+<p>The success of the Mahdi in the Soudan and the catastrophe to Hicks
+Pasha, in November, 1883, had induced the British Government, not only
+to decline any military assistance to enable the Egyptian Government to
+hold the Soudan, but to insist upon its abandonment by the khédive. To
+do this it was necessary to bring away the garrisons scattered all over
+the country, and such of the Egyptian <span class="pagenum"><a id="page389" name="page389"></a>(p. 389)</span> population as might
+object to remain. To Gordon was intrusted the withdrawal of the
+garrisons and the evacuation of the Soudan. At Cairo his functions were
+considerably extended. He was appointed, with the consent of the British
+Government, governor-general of the Soudan, and was instructed, not only
+to effect the evacuation of the country, but to take steps to leave
+behind an organized independent government.</p>
+
+<p>By the month of March, having succeeded in sending some two thousand
+five hundred people down the Nile into safety, Gordon found himself
+getting hemmed in by the Mahdi and no assistance coming from without. On
+April 16, 1884, his last telegram before the wires were cut complained
+bitterly of the neglect of the Government. The attack of Khartoum began
+on March 12th, and from that time to its fall Gordon carried on the
+defence with consummate skill. His resources were small, his troops few,
+and his European assistants could be counted on the fingers of one hand;
+yet he managed to convert his river steamers into iron-clads, to build
+new ones, to make and lay down land mines, to place wire entanglements,
+and to execute frequent sorties, while he kept up the spirits and
+courage of his followers by striking medals in honor of their bravery,
+and baffled a fanatic and determined foe for over ten months, during the
+latter part of which the people who trusted him were perishing from
+disease and famine, and the grip of the enemy was tightening.</p>
+
+<p>In April the necessity of a relief expedition was pressed upon the
+Government at home, but without avail. In May popular feeling found
+vent, not only in public meetings but in the House of Commons, when a
+vote of censure on the Government was lost by only twenty-eight votes.
+Eventually, proposals were made to send a relief expedition from Cairo
+in the autumn, and on August 5th a vote of credit for £300,000 was taken
+for "operations for the relief of General Gordon, should it become
+necessary, and to make certain preparations in respect thereof." Even
+when it was decided that Lord Wolseley should take command of a relief
+expedition up the Nile, hesitation continued to mark the proceedings of
+the Government, and time, so valuable on account of the rising of the
+Nile, was lost. It was September 1st before Lord Wolseley was able to
+leave England. Then everything was done, but the delay had been fatal.</p>
+
+<p>In September, 1884, having driven the rebels out of Berber, Gordon
+authorized his companions, Colonel Stewart and Frank Power (<i>Times</i>
+correspondent), to go down the river in the steamer Abbas to open
+communication with Dongola. The steamer struck on a rock, and they were
+both treacherously murdered. Gordon was now the only Englishman in
+Khartoum. On December 20th, Lord Wolseley launched Sir Herbert Stewart's
+expedition from Korti across the desert to Metemmeh, where, after two
+severe engagements, it arrived on January 20, 1885, under command of Sir
+Charles Wilson, Stewart having been mortally wounded. In order to succor
+the advancing force, Gordon had deprived himself for three months of
+five out of his seven steamers. These five steamers, fully armed,
+equipped, and provisioned, were in waiting, and in them were his diaries
+and letters up to December 14th. On that date he wrote to Major Watson,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page390" name="page390"></a>(p. 390)</span> R.E., at Cairo, that he thought the game was up, and a
+catastrophe might be expected in ten days' time, and sent his adieux to
+all. On the same day he wrote to his sister: "I am quite happy, thank
+God, and like Lawrence, I have tried to do my duty." His diary ended on
+the same day with: "I have done the best for the honor of my country.
+Good-by." It was necessary for the safety of his troops that Wilson
+should first make a reconnoissance down the river toward Berber before
+going to Khartoum, and when he started up the river, on January 24th,
+the difficulties of navigation were so great that it was midday on the
+28th before the goal was reached, and then only to find it in the hands
+of the Mahdi, Khartoum having fallen early on the 26th, after a siege of
+317 days.</p>
+
+<p>From the most accurate information since obtained, it appears that the
+garrison, early in January, had been reduced to great straits for want
+of food, and great numbers of the inhabitants had availed themselves of
+Gordon's permission to join the Mahdi. Omdurman, opposite to Khartoum,
+on the west bank of the river, fell about January 13th, and about the
+18th a sortie was made, in which some serious fighting took place. The
+state of the garrison then grew desperate. Gordon continually visited
+the posts by night as well as day, and encouraged the famished garrison.
+The news of Sir Herbert Stewart's expedition, and the successful
+engagements it had fought on the way to Metemmeh, determined the Mahdi
+to storm Khartoum before reinforcements could arrive for its relief. The
+attack was made on the south front at 3.30 a.m., on Monday, January 26,
+1885. The defence was half-hearted, treachery was at work, and Gordon
+received no tidings of the assault. The rebels made good their entrance,
+and then a general massacre ensued. The accounts of Gordon's death are
+confused and conflicting, but they all agree in stating that he was
+killed near the gate of the palace, and his head carried to the Mahdi's
+camp.</p>
+
+<p>Intelligence of the catastrophe reached England on Thursday, February
+5th. The outburst of popular grief, not only in this country and her
+colonies, but also among foreign nations, has hardly been paralleled. It
+was universally acknowledged that the world had lost a hero. Friday,
+March 13th, was then observed as a day of national mourning, and special
+services were held in the cathedrals and in many churches of the land,
+those at Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's being attended by the royal
+family, members of both houses of parliament, and representatives of the
+naval and military services. Parliament voted a national monument to be
+placed in Trafalgar Square, and a sum of £20,000 to his relatives. More
+general expression was given to the people's admiration of Gordon's
+character by the institution of the "Gordon Boys' Home" for homeless and
+destitute boys. Gordon's sister presented to the town of Southampton her
+brother's library, in March, 1889.</p>
+
+<p>Gordon's character was unique. Simple-minded, modest, and almost
+morbidly retiring, he was fearless and outspoken when occasion required.
+Strong in will and prompt in action, with a naturally hot temper, he was
+yet forgiving to a fault. Somewhat brusque in manner, his disposition
+was singularly sympathetic and attractive, winning all hearts. Weakness
+and suffering at once enlisted <span class="pagenum"><a id="page391" name="page391"></a>(p. 391)</span> his interest. Caring nothing
+for what was said of him, he was indifferent to praise or reward, and
+had a supreme contempt for money. His whole being was dominated by a
+Christian faith, at once so real and so earnest that, although his
+religious views were tinged with mysticism, the object of his life was
+the entire surrender of himself to work out whatever he believed to be
+the will of God.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER<a id="footnotetag22" name="footnotetag22"></a><a href="#footnote22" title="Go to footnote 22"><span class="small">[22]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Elbridge S. Brooks</span><br>
+
+(1839-1876)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img044" name="img044"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img044.jpg" width="250" height="276" alt="General George A. Custer." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Daring is always popular. The dashing fighter outranks the tactician and
+takes precedence over the engineer when the people's plaudits for valor
+fill the air. To be the <i>beau sabreur</i> of the army, as was Murat, in
+Napoleon's day, and as Custer was in Grant's, is as glorious as it is
+dramatic, as inspiring as it is picturesque. There were, in fact, many
+points of resemblance between these two dashing cavalry leaders&mdash;Murat,
+the Frenchman, and Custer, the American. Both smelled powder as the
+aides-de-camp of their chiefs; both rose rapidly from grade to grade,
+and from rank to rank, until they stood at the top; both labored at the
+end under the burden of criticism and detraction; and both met their
+death through a mistake, and fell like brave and gallant soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>George Armstrong Custer was born at New Rumley, in the State of Ohio, on
+December 5, 1839. His father was a blacksmith and farmer, of German
+stock, a descendant of a Hessian officer named Küstu&mdash;one among many who
+came to conquer and remained to live and die as citizens of the land
+they had failed to subjugate.</p>
+
+<p>Young Custer was educated in the district school of New Rumley, and in
+the academy at Monroe, in Michigan, where he went in 1849 to live with
+his sister Lydia. Returning to Ohio he taught school for a year or more
+in Hopedale, near New Rumley, and in 1857 was able to see his boyish
+dream come true, and, as a lad of seventeen, enter the United States
+Military Academy at West Point.</p>
+
+<p>Cadet Custer graduated from West Point in 1861, and hurried to the front
+at once, eager for service, for the war between the States had begun. He
+was made bearer of despatches by General Scott; he fought at Bull Run as
+lieutenant in the Second United States Cavalry, to which he had been
+assigned; he conducted successfully balloon reconnoissance along the
+Confederate lines, and so inspired General McClellan by his energy,
+courage, and persistence that he was appointed aide-de-camp to the
+general, with the rank of captain.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page392" name="page392"></a>(p. 392)</span> For his dash and daring in the Rappahannock battles he was
+advanced by speedy promotions to the rank of brigadier-general of
+volunteers, his commission dating from June, 1863, just one year after
+his appointment as aide-de-camp to McClellan. He won his brevet as major
+in the regular army for his brilliant leadership of cavalry at
+Gettysburg; he had a horse shot under him while heading the charge at
+Culpepper, and gained his brevet as lieutenant-colonel of regulars for
+his gallantry in Sheridan's lights about Richmond, in the spring of
+1864. He won renown and glory in Sheridan's famous raid on Richmond, by
+saving his brigade-colors at the battle of Trevillion Station, and, in
+September, 1864, his dashing valor at Winchester procured him his brevet
+as colonel of regulars and the volunteer rank of major-general. He won
+the battle of Woodstock by a wonderful cavalry engagement, routing the
+enemy, whom he drove for twenty-six miles, and capturing all their guns
+save one. In the bloody battle of Cedar Creek he fought at the head of
+the Third Division of Cavalry from start to finish, helping to turn a
+rout into a victory and recapturing all the guns and colors the Union
+troops had lost early in the action, besides taking all the Confederate
+flags and cannon. At Waynesboro, in the spring of 1865, still leading
+the Third Division, he won the day unaided; he captured 1,600 prisoners,
+with all the enemy's camp equipage, guns, and colors, and then turning
+for another onset, Custer drove the Confederate General Early from the
+field, destroying his command, scattering his army, and ending the
+campaign, so far as Early's army was concerned. For this brilliant
+engagement, and for his bravery at the battles of Five Forks and
+Dinwiddie Court-House, on April 1, 1865, Custer was brevetted
+brigadier-general in the regular army; and, as he had won the first
+colors taken by the Army of the Potomac in 1862, so, in 1865, he
+received the first flag of truce from Lee's army when the end at last
+came, and was present at the historic surrender at Appomattox. Then he
+secured his last promotion. He was brevetted major-general in the
+regular army and appointed major-general of volunteers.</p>
+
+<p>It was a brilliant and exceptional record. He had fought in all the
+battles of the Army of the Potomac save one. He was Sheridan's most
+trusted and favorite cavalry officer. In less than four years he had
+advanced from captain of volunteers to major-general, and from
+lieutenant to major-general in the regular army. He was but twenty-six
+when the war closed, and all his promotions had been won by his bravery,
+his dash, his daring, and his good leadership. During the last six
+months of the war the Third Division of Cavalry, led by Custer, captured
+in open fight over one hundred pieces of artillery, sixty-five battle
+flags, and ten thousand prisoners. It was a record of which any soldier
+might be proud, and it made Custer at once the idol of his hard-riding
+troopers, and one of the popular heroes of the day. At the great review
+in Washington he rode near the head of the parade, leading what was
+popularly called "the most gallant cavalry division of the age," greeted
+with cheers and flowers along the line of march.</p>
+
+<p>Custer's active service did not close with the war. He was sent to Texas
+as commander of a cavalry division, and in November, 1865, was made
+chief of cavalry. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page393" name="page393"></a>(p. 393)</span> In February, 1866, he was mustered out of
+service as major-general of volunteers and became again captain in the
+regular army, "on leave." President Johnson denied him the leave of
+absence he asked for to fight under Juarez in Mexico against Maximilian,
+the usurper, and in July, 1866, he received his commission as
+lieutenant-colonel of the newly formed Seventh Cavalry, United States
+Army&mdash;the regiment that he made into Indian fighters and served with
+until the end. In November, 1866, he joined his regiment at Fort Riley,
+and was soon fighting Indians on the plains. He utterly defeated the
+hostile Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and Kiowas at the battle of the Washita,
+in the Indian Territory, in November, 1871; he was on post duty in
+Kentucky until 1873, and then again on the plains, where, on August 4,
+1873, he whipped the hostile Sioux at the battle of Tongue River, in the
+Yellowstone country, and again, on the 11th of the same month, at the
+battle of the Big Horn. In the summer of 1874 he led an expedition of
+exploration and discovery into the Black Hills, in the Dakota country,
+and in May, 1876, led his regiment in what proved to be his last
+campaign, a march against the hostile Sioux in the unexplored region of
+the Little Big Horn. Here, with less than three hundred men, he faced
+the confederated Sioux, numbering thousands of warriors, and in a
+desperate and characteristic engagement closed the record of a life of
+brilliant effort and daring by standing at bay, against the tremendous
+odds of ten to one, until he and his entire command fell to a man,
+fighting desperately to the end.</p>
+
+<p>Custer was gallant, but sometimes indiscreet; he was daring, but often
+careless of consequences; and when in positions of command he was apt to
+be impatient of cowardice and of greed. So he raised up enemies for
+himself, and twice these enemies sought and nearly accomplished his
+downfall. His last campaign was fought under the burden of an apparent
+official censure, galling to a man of Custer's impetuous nature, all the
+more so as he knew it to be unmerited and unjust. There is little doubt
+that this weight of wrong engendered a spirit of recklessness, foreign
+even to his daring nature, and led him to take risks he would not
+otherwise have accepted, simply because he felt the necessity for action
+and believed that through valor would come his speediest vindication.
+Had he been supported by those he relied upon he might, even in the face
+of the overpowering odds marshalled against him, have come off
+victorious, instead of dying, an unnecessary sacrifice, like another
+Roland, and, if we accept the legends, at just Roland's age. It is
+because that tragic ending of a valiant life was, viewed from the
+picturesque stand-point, its logical and dramatic conclusion, that
+American tradition and popular applause will, in the years to come,
+remember Custer, not so much for the dash at Winchester, the daring at
+Waynesboro, or the valor at Five Forks, as for his immortal last stand
+on the banks of the Little Big Horn, when he and his brave troopers went
+down in death together.</p>
+
+<p>General Custer was the born soldier in face and figure. Lithe,
+broad-shouldered, and sinewy in frame, nearly six feet in height,
+blue-eyed and golden-haired, he was the beau ideal cavalry
+leader&mdash;alert, active, ready, and responsive, with an eye to all
+details, a love for the picturesque in bearing and equipment, of great
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page394" name="page394"></a>(p. 394)</span> endurance, abstemious, healthy, and strong, and as much at
+home in the saddle and with the sabre as in his own little house in
+Monroe or by his blazing camp-fire. He married, in February, 1864,
+Elizabeth Bacon, a daughter of Judge Daniel S. Bacon, of Monroe. For ten
+years his wife was his constant companion in camp and in frontier
+service, and she has written many sketches of his active life in the
+saddle and his characteristics as soldier and as man.</p>
+
+<p>General Custer, at the time of his death, was engaged on a series of
+"War Memoirs," and his articles on frontier life and army experiences
+found ready acceptance and wide favor. He was, undoubtedly, America's
+best cavalry leader, and won a place as "a perfect general of horse"
+beside the world's dashing war-riders&mdash;from Hannibal's "Thunderbolt,"
+Mago the Carthaginian, to Maurice of Nassau and the "Golden Eagle,"
+Murat the Frenchman.</p>
+
+<p>Fourteen of the thirty-seven years he lived were spent in actual service
+in the camp or on the battle-field. He was a brigadier-general at
+twenty-three and a major-general at twenty-five. In the height of his
+popularity and his phenomenal success as a cavalry leader, he was a
+picturesque and familiar figure to friend and foe alike, as in his broad
+cavalier's hat, his gold-bedizened jacket, and high cavalry boots, with
+his long hair streaming in the wind, he would ride like a tornado, to
+the accompaniment of "Garry Owen," his favorite battle-air, carrying all
+before him&mdash;a subject worthy the pencil of a Vandyke, the very type of
+the dashing trooper of romance. But that there was a method in his dash
+and a practical element in his daring, even the generals he outranked
+and the civilians who tried to direct him would admit, and to be the
+choice of McClellan and the favorite of Sheridan gave the assurance of
+worth to his leadership and of value to his valor.</p>
+
+<p>In 1877 Custer's remains were removed to the graveyard at West Point
+from the battle-field of the Little Big Horn, where he had first been
+buried amid the fallen heroes of his own brave band. In 1879 the
+Government made the battle-ground where Custer met his death a national
+cemetery, and raised a monument, upon which appeared the names and rank
+of all those who fell in that needless and fatal, but heroic, fight.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig015" name="sig015"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig015.jpg" width="300" height="77" alt="Author signature. Elbridge S. Brooks." title="">
+</div>
+
+<a id="img045" name="img045"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img045.jpg" width="400" height="557" alt="" title="">
+<p>Custer's Last Fight.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page395" name="page395"></a>(p. 395)</span> HENRY M. STANLEY<a id="footnotetag23" name="footnotetag23"></a><a href="#footnote23" title="Go to footnote 23"><span class="small">[23]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Noah Brooks</span><br>
+
+(BORN 1841)</h3>
+
+<a id="img046" name="img046"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img046.jpg" width="250" height="321" alt="Henry M. Stanley." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Two white men, one from America and the other from England, met in the
+heart of Equatorial Africa, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, November
+10, 1871. This was their first meeting. The Englishman had been lost to
+the outside world for more than two years, and the American had been
+looking for him since the early part of 1871. Finally, after many great
+difficulties and perils, the American found the lost explorer,
+surrounded by his black guards, friends, and companions. They had dimly
+heard of each other through the vague rumors of the natives for months
+past, and now meeting face to face, the American lifting his cap, said,
+"Dr. Livingstone, I presume." The Englishman nodded an affirmative
+reply, and the other said, "I am Henry M. Stanley."</p>
+
+<p>It was in this simple yet dramatic way that two of the most famous
+African travellers of modern times met in the heart of the Dark
+Continent. Quite as dramatic, perhaps, was the departure of Stanley in
+pursuit of Livingstone. Stanley was not widely known previous to his
+expedition to Africa in search of Livingstone. He had served as a war
+correspondent of one of the great New York newspapers for several years,
+and was known to his craft as a faithful, accurate, and courageous
+newspaper correspondent. He had dared many dangers, and had encountered
+and overcome obstacles that would have dismayed a less intrepid soul. In
+1868 he served the <i>New York Herald</i> as correspondent during the war in
+Abyssinia which raged between the British and King Theodore. It was here
+he got his first taste of African adventure. It was not a long war. The
+British shut up King Theodore in the fortress of Magdala, where he
+perished miserably <span class="pagenum"><a id="page396" name="page396"></a>(p. 396)</span> by his own hand in the flames of his
+burning citadel. Thence Stanley went to Spain, where a great civil war
+had broken out, and he witnessed the sacking of cities, the prosecution
+of sieges, and battles large and small innumerable.</p>
+
+<p>This war over, in the autumn of 1869, the civilized world was wondering
+whether Dr. Livingstone, the African missionary and explorer, were dead
+or alive. Dr. Livingstone, who was of Scottish birth and was in the
+service of the London Missionary Society, had been long laboring in
+South Africa, a country of which the outer world then knew but very
+little. Along the coast here and there were points occupied temporarily
+by white traders and travellers, but the interior of the Dark Continent
+was known only through the tales of the slave-catchers, who brought to
+the coast the black people they had gathered like so many cattle in the
+interior. Dr. Livingstone was doing what he could to spread the light of
+the Christian religion through those benighted regions. His first
+departure into the interior of Africa was from Cape Town, in 1840, and
+for more than thirty-three years he spent his life in the arduous work
+to which he had consecrated himself. In 1858 he had returned to England
+and published a book, giving an account of his missionary labors and his
+discoveries, and, liberally provided with means, he returned to Africa
+to carry on his work. He was accompanied by his wife, who died in the
+interior of Africa in 1862. In 1863 he returned to England and published
+a second book, giving some further account of his explorations.</p>
+
+<p>Again, in 1865, he returned to Africa, and for more than a year no word
+came from him, but there ran a rumor that he had been killed by the
+savages. Early in 1869, however, letters from Dr. Livingstone, written a
+year before, were received on the coast, showing that he was alive and
+well. He had travelled many thousands of miles, being the first white
+man that had ever penetrated those dark and mysterious regions in the
+heart of Africa. But now, in the autumn of 1869, more than twenty months
+had passed since any word of his had come out of the darkness, and the
+world was ready to believe that the faithful missionary and explorer had
+dared his fate too often, and had died in the jungles of Africa.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this time that Stanley, resting after a long and arduous
+campaign in Spain, received from James Gordon Bennett, who was then in
+Paris, a telegram summoning him to an interview in that city. Arriving
+at the French capital early in the morning, Stanley went straight to Mr.
+Bennett's lodgings, before that gentleman had risen from his bed. In
+answer to his knock a voice commanded him to enter. The two men had not
+met in many years. Stanley was bronzed and aged by sun and storm, and
+Bennett, surprised, abruptly asked, "Who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am Stanley, and I have come to answer your message," was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>Bennett motioned Stanley to a seat, and after a moment's pause, asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Will you go to Africa and find Livingstone?"</p>
+
+<p>Stanley was startled. For a moment he reflected; then he replied, "I
+will;" and before he left the room his agreement with Bennett was
+practically concluded, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page397" name="page397"></a>(p. 397)</span> and some of the larger details of the
+expedition were mapped out, and Stanley left the hotel clothed with a
+commission to find Livingstone, and promised all needed funds for
+expenses and for the relief of the great African explorer, should he be
+in need, as it was expected he would be found, if at all.</p>
+
+<p>Stanley first went to the east coast of Africa, where he arrived in the
+early part of 1871. Months were consumed at Zanzibar in making ready the
+expedition with which he was to penetrate into the interior. Several
+caravans or trains were despatched, one after the other, loaded with
+ammunition, arms, provisions, and the necessaries of life, and with a
+large supply of goods with which to purchase a right of way through
+hostile or unfriendly kingdoms and states.</p>
+
+<p>Bringing up the rear of these various trains, Stanley and his armed
+force left the coast of Africa, March 21, 1871. He had with him 192
+persons, negroes and Arabs, and as he launched out into the untravelled
+places of Africa, two words rang in his ears, "Find Livingstone."
+Enduring many hardships, sometimes fighting and sometimes coaxing the
+natives, Stanley pressed on his way, his general course being in a
+northwesterly direction, signs, rumors, and perhaps instincts, leading
+him to believe that Livingstone, if found alive, would be discovered
+somewhere in the region of Lake Tanganyika. It would be impossible to
+describe the vagueness and mysteriousness of the rumors which float to
+and fro in an untravelled and savage country, but as the intrepid
+adventurer pressed on he heard more and more credible reports of the
+lost white man. His first convincing intimation of his being near
+Livingstone was when a black met him, and, speaking to him in tolerably
+good English, told him that a white man was said to be in a village near
+by. This man was one of Dr. Livingstone's servants, and soon the two,
+one from America and the other from England, met at Ujiji, on the shores
+of the lake.</p>
+
+<p>Stanley remained with Livingstone until March 14th of the following
+year, busied with explorations of the fascinating region into which he
+had penetrated. He supplied Livingstone with all of the goods that he
+could spare, and on his return to Zanzibar he sent him a caravan with
+men, supplies, and such articles as he needed, fulfilling the orders of
+Mr. Bennett. Stanley never again saw Livingstone in life.</p>
+
+<p>Livingstone died of malarial fever contracted in the African marshes,
+and his faithful blacks embalmed his body and carried it to the coast,
+hundreds of miles, bringing with them every article belonging to the
+faithful missionary, even to the smallest scraps of paper on which were
+penned the last notes of his journey which he ever wrote. Livingstone
+was buried with grand ceremony in Westminster Abbey, and Stanley was one
+of those who bore him to his grave.</p>
+
+<p>Stanley's early life was a romance. He was born in Wales, near the
+little town of Denbigh, and his parents were so poor that when he was
+about three years of age he was sent to the poor-house of St. Asaph to
+be brought up and educated at the expense of the parish. At the age of
+thirteen he was his own master, and though young, he was ambitious, well
+informed, and well poised. He taught school while yet a lad in the
+village of Mold, Flintshire, North Wales. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page398" name="page398"></a>(p. 398)</span> Tiring of this
+uncongenial occupation, he made his way to Liverpool when he was about
+fourteen years of age, and shipped as cabin-boy on board a sailing
+vessel bound to New Orleans. Like other British-born youths, America was
+to him the promised land, and thither he turned his steps in pursuit of
+fortune and fame. In New Orleans he fell in with a kindly merchant, a
+Mr. Stanley, who adopted him and gave him his name, for the youngster's
+real name was John Rowlands. His protector dying without leaving a will,
+the boy was once more turned adrift, but he managed to live and sustain
+himself, and when twenty-one years of age, in 1861, the great Civil War
+having broken out, Stanley went into the Confederate service then
+recruiting at New Orleans. He was subsequently taken prisoner by the
+Federal forces, and being allowed his liberty, he volunteered in the
+United States Navy. He did his work well, and was in due time promoted
+to be acting ensign on the iron-clad Ticonderoga. He made friends
+wherever he went, for he was brave, modest, and of a frank disposition.
+The war over he was discharged from the naval service, went to Asia
+Minor, where he saw many strange countries, wrote letters to the
+American newspapers, and in 1866 revisited his native village in Wales.
+Returning to the United States, he entered the service of the <i>New York
+Herald</i>, and went to Abyssinia as war correspondent, as before stated.</p>
+
+<p>Stanley returned to Europe after his discovery of Livingstone, in July,
+1872, and published his narrative, but many people in Europe and in
+America refused to believe his story. Some persons who thought
+themselves expert in knowledge of African travel proved to their entire
+satisfaction that he never had been far from the coast, never had seen
+Livingstone, and that his wonderful tale was a tissue of romance. The
+Queen of England showed her belief and confidence in him by sending him
+a box of gold set with jewels, and the Royal Geographical Society of
+Great Britain, a very high and mighty body, showed him great honor.</p>
+
+<p>The attention of geographers and scientific men was now turned to the
+great Lake Tanganyika, about which very little was known. The outlet of
+the lake was as yet undiscovered. The secret sources of the Nile were
+unknown, and the great river that reaches the Congo coast from the
+interior was then, so far as men knew, lost in the foam of the cataracts
+above. Even the already famous lake known as the Victoria Nyanza was
+indistinctly sketched on the maps, and people familiar with African
+exploration were uncertain whether that great body of water was a lake
+or a chain of lakes.</p>
+
+<p>Stanley was asked by the editor of the <i>London Daily Telegraph</i> if he
+could settle these great questions if he were commissioned to go to
+Africa. He replied, "While I live there will be something done. If I
+survive the time required to perform all the work, all shall be done."
+James Gordon Bennett was asked by cable if he would join in the new
+expedition. His sententious reply flashed under the ocean was: "Yes.
+Bennett." And Stanley's second great work was already determined upon.</p>
+
+<p>Only six weeks were allowed for preparation, and when it was noised
+abroad that Stanley was taking another expedition into the heart of
+Africa, he was overwhelmed <span class="pagenum"><a id="page399" name="page399"></a>(p. 399)</span> with offers of volunteer
+assistants, and with a great variety of strange contrivances to help him
+on his journey. Finally, all preparations being concluded, he left
+England August 15, 1874, accompanied by only three white men, Frank and
+Edward Pocock and Frederick Barker. These men, with the goods and other
+needed articles for the expedition, were sent on ahead, and twenty
+months after his last previous departure from Zanzibar, Stanley was once
+more at that point of departure, ready to begin his preparations for
+another plunge into the heart of the Dark Continent.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the black men who had been with him on his previous journey,
+when he searched for Livingstone, were found at Zanzibar, and they were
+all eager to go with him again, and when he was ready to depart he had
+in his company 224 persons, some of the black men taking their wives
+with them. The company after leaving Zanzibar landed at Bergamoyo, on
+the mainland, November 13, 1874, and five days later his column boldly
+advanced into the heart of the Dark Continent. The general direction of
+the expedition was at first nearly westerly, then turning to the north
+it was aimed for Victoria Nyanza. The march was obstructed by marshy
+regions, overflowing with recent rains. Moist exhalations and poisonous
+vapors prevailed, and the first month was a gloomy one. Stanley's own
+weight in thirty-eight days fell from 180 pounds to 130 pounds, and the
+three young Englishmen with him were greatly reduced in strength and
+flesh. One of these, Edward Pocock, was prostrated, and though he was
+carried back to the high, dry table land nearer the coast, he died and
+was buried in that lonely region.</p>
+
+<p>By January 21, 1875, 20 of the black men of the expedition had died,
+many were sick and disabled, and 89, discouraged by their misfortunes,
+deserted. They were now in a hostile region, and were attacked by
+natives day after day in succession, but after much hard fighting they
+got away and labored onward toward the Victoria Nyanza, which they
+reached on January 27th, near its southern shore. This event was
+celebrated with great joy and cheerfulness; they felt that they were out
+of the wilderness. Six weeks were now consumed in a voyage around
+Victoria Nyanza.</p>
+
+<p>During the absence of the exploring party, Frederick Barker, who had
+been left in the camp on the lake, died of fever, leaving Pocock and
+Stanley the only white men in the party. It was here that Stanley met
+King Mtesa, the King of Uganda, a benevolent and mild-mannered Pagan,
+who had previously been converted to Mohammedanism, and now accepted the
+Christian religion with equal cheerfulness and good-nature.</p>
+
+<p>On his way westward Stanley passed through the regions of King Rumanika,
+an eccentric character, at whose court the white man heard many strange
+stories of unknown regions in the heart of the continent. From this
+point Stanley went southwardly to explore that part of Lake Tanganyika
+which lies south, and this he found to be three hundred and twenty miles
+long, averaging a width of twenty-eight miles. It has no known outlet,
+and a sounding line of two hundred and eighty feet found no bottom.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page400" name="page400"></a>(p. 400)</span> His next march from Tanganyika to the River Lualaba was
+toilsome and perilous and beset with dangers almost incredible. At
+Nyangwe Stanley touched the most distant point in Central Africa ever
+reached before by white man. Here he met with Tippoo Tib, the famous
+Arab trader. This man, who has always seemed to be master of the
+destinies and fortunes of the wild, roving tribes in the interior,
+agreed to accompany Stanley on his exploration of the Lualaba or Great
+River. If it had not been for this agreement with Tippoo Tib, it is most
+likely that Stanley's expedition would have ended then and there, and we
+never should have known, as we now know, that the Congo and the Lualaba
+are one river, the second largest in the world. Its line extends from
+its month on the west coast of Africa more than half-way across the
+continent, and it has its rise in the great lakes of the interior. To
+this vast stream Stanley has given the name of Livingstone.</p>
+
+<p>The object of Stanley's journey now was to throw light on the western
+half of the continent, which was then represented on the maps by a
+blank, through which meandered a few vague and uncertain lines
+representing rivers, guessed at but not known. Stanley got on better
+with the natives than did any of those who had gone before him, for he
+was wise, patient, and gentle, and yet so firm and decided that he was
+held in great awe and respect by the black men wherever he was known.
+Leaving the river and deflecting to the westward, he struggled on
+through a forest matted and interlaced with vines, swarming with
+creeping things, damp and reeking with vapors, and dripping with
+moisture. It was a most intolerable and horrid stage of the journey.
+When again he struck the great river he resolved to go by land no
+further. Here he was abandoned by Tippoo Tib, who refused to go on.
+Stanley resolutely set himself to work building and buying canoes, and
+led by his own English-built boat, the Lady Alice, his expedition
+started finally down the river, which here flows due north. The fleet
+was twenty-three in number, and was loaded with stores, goods, and
+supplies.</p>
+
+<a id="img047" name="img047"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img047.jpg" width="600" height="421" alt="" title="">
+<p>Stanley shooting the Rapids of the Congo.</p></div>
+
+<p>It was a wonderful voyage. The explorers were harassed at times by
+savage tribes, some of them believed to be cannibals, who attacked the
+strangers from shore, or in pure wantonness, as they drifted down the
+stream. Sickness and hunger were often their lot, and they were
+overtaken by tropical storms. In some places, too, they encountered
+rapids and cataracts, around which their fleet had to be dragged through
+paths cut in the primeval forest while the savages hovered around them.
+The forests were populous with wild beasts; chimpanzees and gorillas,
+monkeys, and all manner of four-footed things infested the clambering
+vines that festooned the trees. They were once attacked by an
+hippopotamus, and elephants and rhinoceroses were never far away. At a
+point below where the great river turns from its great northerly course
+and flows westward, just above the equator, was discovered a series of
+cataracts, seven in all, the first of which was named Livingstone Falls
+and the seventh Stanley Falls. The natives from this point downward to
+the mouth of the Congo had lost something of their natural ferocity, as
+they had been tamed by trade from the west coast, and great was the
+rejoicing of Stanley's Zanzibar men when they encountered native
+warriors with <span class="pagenum"><a id="page401" name="page401"></a>(p. 401)</span> firearms in their hands, for this showed that
+they had reached a people supplied by traders from the Congo coast.</p>
+
+<p>The passing of the last group of cataracts was attended by numerous
+dangers. In spite of all their efforts, canoes were sometimes carried
+over the falls and wrecked, and on June 3d, Frank Pocock, the last of
+Stanley's white companions, was drowned in the Congo by the upsetting of
+a boat. Pocock was a brave, faithful, and devoted follower of Stanley,
+who has paid a touching tribute to the manliness, affection, and courage
+of the young Englishman who lies buried in the savage wilderness of the
+Congo.</p>
+
+<p>Very soon, as they drew nearer to the west coast, in the latter part of
+the summer of 1877, sickness, distress, and famine pressed hard upon the
+way-worn travellers. They were destitute of nearly everything that could
+sustain nature. The natives refused to sell supplies, and starvation
+stared them in the face. Knowing that a trading-post was established at
+Embomma, a two days' journey down the river, Stanley wrote on an old
+piece of cotton cloth a letter asking for help, which was sent to the
+trading-post by his swiftest runners. This letter was written in
+Spanish, French, and also in English, Stanley in his anxiety and despair
+leaving no means untried to reach the unknown traders whom he heard were
+at Embomma. The men into whose hands this three-fold message fell were
+English and Portuguese. Their response was prompt and generous. The
+messengers were sent back, followed by a small caravan laden with ample
+supplies of food and the necessaries of life, greatly to the relief of
+the starving people who, on the arrival of this timely aid, had eaten
+nothing for thirty hours. On August 9, 1877, the nine hundred and
+ninety-ninth day from the date of their departure from Zanzibar,
+Stanley's company, now numbering one hundred and fourteen blacks and one
+white man, met the generous traders and merchants of Embomma, who
+received the way-worn voyagers that had crossed the Dark Continent. From
+the mouth of the Congo the expedition was carried by steamer to Kabinda,
+a seaport a short distance up the coast, whence they were taken to the
+port of San Paolo de Loanda, where they embarked on board a British
+man-of-war and were taken to Cape Town; thence, touching at Port Natal,
+they steamed to Zanzibar, where they arrived on November 20, 1877. Long
+since given up for dead, the Zanzibar men were greeted by their kindred
+with signs of thanksgiving, tears and cries of joy. They had crossed the
+heart of the continent, doubled the great Cape, and were again at home.</p>
+
+<p>Stanley returned to England from Zanzibar, arriving in December, 1877.
+The King of the Belgians had been planning an expedition to open up the
+Congo country to trade, and now requested Stanley to take command of his
+expedition. Stanley undertook the management of the new organization and
+returned to Africa in 1879, where he remained nearly six years, hard at
+work on the Congo, making roads, establishing stations, and opening the
+way for commerce. The Congo Free State, founded by King Leopold, lies
+chiefly south of the great bend of the river, and contains an area of
+1,508,000 square miles, with a population of more than 42,000,000. The
+articles collected from the African trade at <span class="pagenum"><a id="page402" name="page402"></a>(p. 402)</span> points along the
+great river, are ivory, palm-oil, gum, copal, rubber, bees-wax, cabinet
+woods, hippopotamus teeth and hides, monkey skins, and divers other
+things. Stanley now made brief visits to Europe and the United States.
+While he was in this country, in the winter of 1886 and 1887, he was
+summoned back to Europe to take once more command of an African
+expedition to rescue Emin Pasha, governor of the province of Equatorial
+Africa. Emin is the Egyptian name of Dr. Schnitzler. He has been
+generally known throughout Africa as Emin Pasha, and was governor of the
+province which is one of the outlying posts of the Egyptian government,
+when the revolt in the Soudan took place. When General Gordon was
+besieged in Khartoum, the province of Emin Pasha was cut off from the
+rest of Egypt, and Emin was shut up in the region north of the Albert
+Nyanza, whose capital is Lado, on one of the minor branches of the White
+Nile.</p>
+
+<p>To relieve him in his isolation and necessity, a subscription was
+started in England, and once more, equipped with men, arms, ammunition,
+and other supplies, Stanley sailed for Africa in January, 1887, making
+his head-quarters as before at Zanzibar. The supplies for the expedition
+were shipped directly to the Congo and carried up stream by steamers. At
+Zanzibar, Stanley's old friend Tippoo Tib was met, and he signed an
+agreement making him Governor of Stanley Falls to defend that post
+against all comers, a salary being guaranteed him. Then, accompanied by
+Tippoo Tib, Stanley went to the mouth of the Congo by the way of the
+Cape of Good Hope, reaching the river March 18, 1887; then, ascending
+the stream on which he had met so many hardships and endured so much
+suffering, he carried his force of nearly one thousand men, and his
+supplies, arms, and ammunition, to the relief of Emin Pasha, an enormous
+quantity altogether. The white companions of Stanley on this expedition
+were Major Barttelot, who had served with distinction under General
+Wolseley in Egypt, Major Sir Andrew Clarke, Lieutenant Stairs, Captain
+Nelson, Dr. Park, Rose Troup, Mountjoy Jephson, William Bonny, and Mr.
+Jameson. Of these, two returned to England before the termination of the
+journey, and three perished during the wanderings of the expedition
+through forty-five hundred miles of trackless wilderness, pestilential
+marshes, and regions populous with hostile savages. From June, 1887, to
+December, 1889, the party was lost to the world and no definite news
+from it reached civilization.</p>
+
+<p>The expedition, which had been divided into two parts, generally pursued
+its way in a northeastward course. Major Barttelot was left on the
+Aruwimi, at Yambuya, with 257 men and the main part of the stores, to
+await the coming of the promised reinforcements from Tippoo Tib. A long
+delay ensued, and troubles broke out in consequence (it is said) of the
+rash and imperious demeanor of Major Barttelot, and finally Barttelot
+was murdered and the entire rear-guard was broken down by desertion and
+pillage. Jameson collected the remains of the party, but he soon after
+died, and Mr. Bonny succeeded to the command and collected and kept the
+men together. Meanwhile, Stanley's march ahead was made with many
+difficulties, and he encountered rapid streams and other obstacles
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page403" name="page403"></a>(p. 403)</span> unforeseen and unexpected. Toward the end of December, 1887,
+Stanley's expedition having reached the Albert Edward Nyanza, and still
+being unable to open communications with Emin Pasha, it was decided to
+return to the forest and build a fort, and, after resting the forces,
+make a new start toward the lake. This fortification, known as Fort
+Bodo, was inhabited until April, 1888, when Stanley pressed on, and
+finally found Emin Pasha and his companion, Dr. Casati. They had passed
+through the country of the dwarfs, nearly perishing with hunger, and
+when they reached the lake, Emin's soldiers had mutinied and he was a
+prisoner. Emissaries from the Mahdist Dervishes had stirred up the camp
+of Emin and caused inextricable confusion. Emin was reluctant to leave
+the province, and when Stanley and his white companions determined to
+attempt to reach Zanzibar by an unexplored route, Emin refused to
+depart. Four months were spent in an effort to overcome the reluctance
+of Emin Pasha and Captain Casati, who were unwilling to leave their
+people.</p>
+
+<p>Emin's plea was that ten thousand of his people would have to be
+extricated from the province and carried to the coast. After many and
+exasperating discussions, Stanley refused to wait longer, and Emin, who
+had become nearly blind, brought away with him about five hundred
+persons. The expedition then, over a southeasterly route, made its way
+toward the coast.</p>
+
+<p>The course of march from Albert Edward Nyanza was nearly in a direct
+line to the Uzinja country, on the southwest shore of the Victoria
+Nyanza. The party passed south of Victoria Lake and reached the east
+coast December 4, 1889. The caravan, since it left Albert Edward Nyanza,
+had dwindled from fifteen hundred to one-half that number. This latest
+journey of Stanley lasted one thousand and twelve days, of which hardly
+twenty were without tragical and perilous incidents. The story of the
+annihilation that overcame his rear-guard has been often told. It will
+probably never be settled exactly where shall be placed the blame for
+that frightful disaster.</p>
+
+<p>On his return from the Emin relief expedition, Stanley revisited the
+United States, accompanied by his bride whom he had lately married. He
+gave lectures in several of the larger cities of the country on his
+surprising adventures in Africa. He was now prematurely aged by his
+terrible experiences, and though his eye was still bright and his frame
+alert, care and privation had whitened his hair, exposure had darkened
+his skin and left its wrinkled impress on his forehead. Everywhere he
+was received with the greatest enthusiasm and followed by eager
+thousands, who gazed upon his face and hung with rapture on his words.
+In 1892 he returned to England, and availing himself of his British
+nationality, stood for Parliament in the District of Lambeth, City of
+London, as a Conservative candidate. Much to the surprise and grief of
+his friends he was defeated and since then he has remained in private
+life.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig016" name="sig016"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig016.jpg" width="300" height="69" alt="Author signature. Noah Brooks." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page404" name="page404"></a>(p. 404)</span> THOMAS ALVA EDISON<a id="footnotetag24" name="footnotetag24"></a><a href="#footnote24" title="Go to footnote 24"><span class="small">[24]</span></a><br>
+
+By <span class="smcap">Clarence Cook</span><br>
+
+(Born 1847)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img048" name="img048"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img048.jpg" width="200" height="282" alt="Thomas Alva Edison." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>As someone has called Leonardo da Vinci "the great Italian Yankee,"
+because of his multifarious and ingenious suggestions in the world of
+material things, so our own Edison may be called "the Yankee Leonardo,"
+for, with a curiosity ranging over the whole world of nature, equal to
+that of the Italian, and with a fecundity of invention no less
+bewildering, he unites, like Leonardo, an imaginative and poetical vein
+that lifts his devices into the domain of Art.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Edison is in no respect a graceful or romantic figure such as
+Leonardo was. He reminds us rather, by the weird and cosmic nature of
+his speculations and inventions, of some one of the beings created by
+the Norse mythologists: a nineteenth century gnome, rough, shaggy,
+uncouth, wholly absorbed in his search among the secrets of nature, and,
+while working always for the good of mankind, dwelling in a world apart,
+and with neither time nor inclination to mix in human affairs.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Alva Edison was born at Milan, Erie County, O., February 11,
+1847. He started in life hampered by poverty, by want of teaching and
+training, without friends outside his own home circle to encourage him
+in pushing his fortunes, and with small opportunity, in the little
+village where his lot had been cast, for bettering his condition. On his
+father's side he came of sturdy Dutch stock: the old man, who was still
+living in 1879 at the age of seventy-four, reckoned among his immediate
+ancestors one who lived to be one hundred and two years old, and another
+who reached one hundred and three. He would appear to have been, like
+pioneers in general, ready, if not obliged, to turn his hand to any
+employment that might yield a living, that must be scanty at the best;
+and we read of him as in turn a tailor, a nurseryman, a dealer, first in
+grain and then in lumber, and an agent for the sale of farm-lands. He
+seems to have been unable to do much for his boy beyond teaching him to
+read and write, stimulating his taste for reading by paying him small
+sums of money for every book he read through; he had no need to insist
+that the reading should be done thoroughly, for it was the boy's way to
+do thoroughly everything he undertook. His mother, also, helped Thomas
+in learning: she was of Scotch extraction; but, though her parents were
+from the old country, she herself was born in Massachusetts, where for a
+time she had been a school-teacher. This, then, with the exception of
+two months at the village school, was the limit of young Edison's
+education&mdash;to use <span class="pagenum"><a id="page405" name="page405"></a>(p. 405)</span> the conventional term. The world was now to
+take him in hand, and show what it could do with material so
+unpromising.</p>
+
+<p>Before he was twelve years old, the boy had found a place as newsboy on
+the Grand Trunk Line running to Detroit. In the intervals between his
+raids upon the helpless passengers with his newspapers, periodicals,
+novels, and candies, he kept up the habit of reading, and by practice
+acquired a remarkably clear and finished handwriting. His next step was
+to secure the sole right of selling newspapers on the train, and he soon
+had four boys under him to assist him in the work. Having then bought a
+lot of old type from some printing-office, he rigged up a rude frame in
+one of the baggage-cars that served as a lumber-room, and then proceeded
+to set up and print a newspaper which he called the <i>Grand Trunk
+Herald</i>, and sold with the other newspapers. As he had no press, he was
+obliged to take off the impressions by rubbing the paper on the inked
+type with his hands. In some way, a copy of this newspaper found its way
+to the <i>London Times</i>, and the editor spoke of it as the only newspaper
+in the world printed on a moving train. During the fighting at
+Pittsburgh Landing in 1862, Edison printed off abstracts of the
+telegraphic news, and posted them up at the small country stations, thus
+rendering a great service to the people anxiously waiting for news from
+the field. The terminus of his train was Detroit, and here, for the
+first time, he had access to a library. In his enthusiasm at finding
+himself in virtual possession of such a treasure, he determined, then
+and there, to read the whole library through, as it stood, using his
+time between trains. Beginning at one shelf he read fifteen feet in a
+line, going through each book solidly from cover to cover. In this first
+bout, among other books, he read Newton's "Principia," Ure's "Scientific
+Dictionary," and Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy."</p>
+
+<p>All this time, by hints and suggestions, Nature had been pushing the
+youth toward the field he was finally to occupy almost by right of
+eminent domain. As yet, telegraphy was in its infancy, and the powers of
+electricity only beginning to be known. Edison had from the first been
+interested in the workings of the telegraph line along the railroad, and
+had made some experiments with a rude line of his own, connecting his
+father's home at Port Huron&mdash;a village to which the family had some time
+before removed from Milan&mdash;with the house of a neighbor. To do this, he
+had to make a battery out of odds and ends, old bottles, stove-pipe
+wire, and nails made out of zinc contributed by his youthful friends,
+who in their zeal cut pieces out of the zinc mats under their mothers'
+stoves. He had no one to teach him telegraphy, but an accident&mdash;if
+accidents there be&mdash;was unexpectedly to put him in the way of learning
+its secrets. The child of the station-master was in danger from a moving
+train; young Edison snatched it up and saved its life at the risk of his
+own, and the grateful father rewarded him by teaching him what he knew
+of telegraphy.</p>
+
+<p>Armed with this rudimentary knowledge, and with what, in addition, he
+had learned by practice, Edison passed the next few years of his life in
+moving about over the country, seeking employment less, it would appear,
+for the sake of employment than for the opportunity of increasing his
+practical knowledge of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page406" name="page406"></a>(p. 406)</span> the art that was to swallow up, in his
+mind, all the other arts. But he seems to have succeeded almost in spite
+of himself. He was so eager in his chase after knowledge that he was
+continually tripping himself up. While still at his trade of newsboy on
+the Grand Trunk Railroad, he had come across, at Detroit probably, a
+copy of Fresenius' "Qualitative Analysis" and had become so much
+interested in chemistry, that alongside his printing-press he had fitted
+up a small laboratory with a chance-medley apparatus for experiments,
+and one day a bottle of phosphorus was upset, and the car taking fire
+was only saved by the energy of the conductor, who promptly pitched the
+whole apparatus, with the printing-press to boot, out at the door, and
+then gave the young Fresenius-Franklin a thrashing. Later we hear of
+him, in the course of his wanderings, set to watch a telegraph-machine
+in the absence of the operator, and to prove that he was on guard he was
+to send the word six over the line every half-hour. Not to be
+interrupted in the book he was reading, he contrived a device that did
+the work automatically. In another office he kept back messages while he
+was contriving a way to send them more quickly! Disappearing from this
+office, he appears again in another, this time in Memphis, Tenn. But his
+interest in solving the problem of duplicate transmission proved so
+absorbing that he continually neglected his duties, and on the occasion
+of a change of officers he was dismissed as a useless member of the
+staff. At Louisville he upsets a carboy of sulphuric acid which ruins
+the handsome furniture of a broker's office on the floor below, and
+again finds himself adrift in an unappreciative world. Yet he had proved
+himself, in spite of all drawbacks, an adept of uncommon skill in
+telegraphy; and so widespread in scientific circles was his reputation,
+that he was sent for to Boston to take charge of the main New York wire.
+The impression made by the records of his life at this time is, that he
+looked upon all these employments merely as so many opportunities for
+earning his bread while pursuing his beloved experiments, and that the
+bread-earning was the least important part of the affair. No doubt, he
+always meant to do his duty, but the ecstasy of invention and the thirst
+for discovery carried him out of himself and made him often oblivious of
+sublunary things. While in Boston he still kept up his experiments and
+perfected his duplex telegraph, but it was not brought into successful
+operation until 1872.</p>
+
+<p>In 1871 he came to New York, and having attracted the attention of the
+Stock Exchange by some ingenious suggestions put forth while busied in
+repairing the machine that recorded quotations, he was made
+Superintendent of the Gold and Stock Company, and brought out his
+invention of the printing-telegraph, by which the fluctuations of the
+stock-market in any part of the country are instantly recorded on narrow
+strips of paper.</p>
+
+<a id="img049" name="img049"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img049.jpg" width="400" height="496" alt="" title="">
+<p>Thomas A. Edison&mdash;The Wizard of Menlo Park.</p></div>
+
+<p>The immediate success of this invention, and the great demand for the
+machines, led him to establish a workshop for their manufacture in
+Newark, N. J. But soon the need of still more space, and the desire for
+freedom from interruption while at his work, obliged him to give up
+Newark, and he found new quarters at Menlo Park, N. J.&mdash;a bare plot of
+barren acres destitute of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page407" name="page407"></a>(p. 407)</span> natural attraction of any kind,
+unless it be&mdash;what to Edison indeed is a great charm&mdash;an uninterrupted
+view of the sky; a place virtually unknown before he planted there the
+rude buildings that house his wonderful inventions; yet now a place
+known to scientific men all over the world; the Mecca of many a mind
+seeking to wrest from Nature her dearest secrets.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt, many of the inventions that have made Edison famous must be
+ascribed in their conception and ripening' to various periods of his
+life, but to the popular mind they are all associated with the wizard's
+present home, from whence for several years the bulletins of
+inventions&mdash;playful, useful, necessary, revolutionary&mdash;often as simple
+in their mechanism as they are astonishing in their results, have been
+given to a delighted world. Some of Edison's inventions have a character
+at present of little more than picturesque playfulness, such as the
+Phonograph, perhaps the most remarkable of these minor inventions; the
+Aerophone, by which sounds are amplified without loss of distinctness;
+the Megaphone, an instrument which, inserted in the ear, so magnifies
+sounds that faint whispers may be heard a thousand feet; the Phonometer,
+for measuring the force of the soundwaves caused by the human voice; the
+Microtasimeter, for measuring small variations in temperature. This has
+been tested for so small a variation as 1/24000 of a degree Fahrenheit,
+and in 1878 was used to detect the presence of heat in the sun's corona.
+The most familiar of these lesser inventions is the Phonograph by which
+sounds are made self-recording and capable of being repeated. While this
+curious invention&mdash;almost childish in its simplicity&mdash;is as yet little
+more than a plaything, and has proved of small utility, it makes,
+nevertheless, a strong appeal to the imagination when we reflect that by
+its aid the voice of any human being may be transmitted to ages far in
+the future, and its living tones be heard long after he who uttered them
+has returned to the dust.</p>
+
+<p>But, while these inventions have the charm that invests "the fairy-tales
+of science," the world-wide fame of Edison rests upon greater gifts to
+the world; the various improvements he has made in the telegraph, and
+the perfection to which he has brought the electric light. The invention
+of the telephone, by which persons are enabled to converse with one
+another at very long distances, and by which concerts, operas, and
+orations or sermons in one city can be heard by an audience assembled in
+another, is one of the most remarkable of Edison's achievements, and one
+the usefulness of which in various directions it is easy to foresee. The
+idea of the transmission of messages in opposite directions by the same
+wire was one that had early occurred to Edison, but he was long in
+reducing it to practice. The secret once discovered, however, he rapidly
+progressed until he had brought out the sextuple telegraph, where we
+believe the ability of the instrument rests at present.</p>
+
+<p>The inventor next turned his mind to the study of the electric lamp, in
+which he saw great possibilities. He believed that he could produce a
+light that should be cheaper than gas, and also purer, more steady, and
+more to be depended on. He rejected the principle of the Voltaic arc
+involved in the Brush patent then in use, by which the electric current
+was passed through a strip of platinum or other <span class="pagenum"><a id="page408" name="page408"></a>(p. 408)</span> metal that
+requires a high temperature to melt, because in practice it was found
+that in fact, owing to the difficulty of regulating the flow of the
+electric current, the medium did often melt. He therefore sought for a
+medium that should be practically indestructible, and believed that it
+would be found in pure carbon enclosed in a vacuum. After many trials
+with one and another substance, he at length found that by employing
+slender strips of card-board reduced by intense heat to carbon,
+connecting them with the wires leading from the machine, and enclosing
+them in glass bulbs from which the air had been extracted, the desired
+result could be produced. The next step to accomplish was the division
+of the light, so that any number of lamps could be supplied by the same
+pair of wires&mdash;a condition absolutely necessary if the invention were to
+be of practical utility as applied to the lighting of factories, public
+buildings, or private households, where-ever, in short, many lights are
+needed. This was finally accomplished, and in December, 1879, an
+exhibition was given at Menlo Park of a complete system of lighting.
+This first demonstration of the possibility of light-division created a
+great interest in scientific circles all over the world, especially as
+scientific experts had testified before the British House of Commons
+that the feat was impossible. The Edison incandescent burner is now in
+use in every city, town, and hamlet in this country, and it would seem
+as if it must of necessity before long drive the costly, unhealthy, and
+dangerous coal-gas out of use for illuminating purposes, although we
+believe a wide field of usefulness lies before the coal-gas as a
+substitute for coal in our kitchens.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Edison has received few public honors from his countrymen; but
+the nature of his work has been such as to make his name a household
+word throughout his native country; and not only by the admiration
+excited by his genius&mdash;for it deserves no less a name&mdash;but by the
+practical, every-day benefits he has conferred, he has earned a place in
+the good-will and esteem of his fellows such as seldom falls to the lot
+of man.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig011.jpg" width="300" height="79" alt="Author signature. Clarence Cook." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="p4"><a id="footnote1" name="footnote1"></a>
+<b>Footnote 1:</b> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag1"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote2" name="footnote2"></a>
+<b>Footnote 2:</b> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag2"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote3" name="footnote3"></a>
+<b>Footnote 3:</b> Such is the current tradition and belief, that he was
+hanged at Newgate; but Mr. George Bancroft found no such name in the
+records of the prison.<a href="#footnotetag3"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote4" name="footnote4"></a>
+<b>Footnote 4:</b> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag4"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote5" name="footnote5"></a>
+<b>Footnote 5:</b> The condensed form of the name, when used apart from the
+title, is preferable to the open, for, though he employed the
+conventional style, De La Fayette, up to the time of the French
+Revolution, he then abandoned it, and always afterward wrote it as one
+word, Lafayette, which is now the family name.<a href="#footnotetag5"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote6" name="footnote6"></a>
+<b>Footnote 6:</b> Copyright. 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag6"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote7" name="footnote7"></a>
+<b>Footnote 7:</b> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag7"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote8" name="footnote8"></a>
+<b>Footnote 8:</b> Copyright, 1864, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag8"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote9" name="footnote9"></a>
+<b>Footnote 9:</b> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag9"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote10" name="footnote10"></a>
+<b>Footnote 10:</b> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag10"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote11" name="footnote11"></a>
+<b>Footnote 11:</b> It is said that a prominent man of Liverpool declared that
+"only a parcel of charlatans would ever have issued such a set of
+conditions; that it had been <i>proved</i> to be impossible to make a
+locomotive go ten miles per hour." He added that, "if it ever was done,
+he would eat a stewed engine-wheel for breakfast."<a href="#footnotetag11"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote12" name="footnote12"></a>
+<b>Footnote 12:</b> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag12"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote13" name="footnote13"></a>
+<b>Footnote 13:</b> Reprinted, by permission, from the Magazine of American
+History.<a href="#footnotetag13"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote14" name="footnote14"></a>
+<b>Footnote 14:</b> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag14"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote15" name="footnote15"></a>
+<b>Footnote 15:</b> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag15"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote16" name="footnote16"></a>
+<b>Footnote 16:</b> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag16"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote17" name="footnote17"></a>
+<b>Footnote 17:</b> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag17"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote18" name="footnote18"></a>
+<b>Footnote 18:</b> Souvenirs of my Time. Jessie Benton Frémont.<a href="#footnotetag18"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote19" name="footnote19"></a>
+<b>Footnote 19:</b> Frémont's Oregon and California. (1849.)<a href="#footnotetag19"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote20" name="footnote20"></a>
+<b>Footnote 20:</b> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag20"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote21" name="footnote21"></a>
+<b>Footnote 21:</b> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag21"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote22" name="footnote22"></a>
+<b>Footnote 22:</b> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag22"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote23" name="footnote23"></a>
+<b>Footnote 23:</b> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess<a href="#footnotetag23"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote24" name="footnote24"></a>
+<b>Footnote 24:</b> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag24"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8
+       A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more
+       than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Charles F. Horne
+
+Release Date: March 30, 2009 [EBook #28456]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT MEN AND FAMOUS WOMEN. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sigal Alon, Christine P. Travers and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Mme. Roland in the Prison of Ste. Pelagie.]
+
+
+
+
+GREAT MEN AND FAMOUS WOMEN
+
+
+_A Series of Pen and Pencil Sketches of_
+
+THE LIVES OF MORE THAN 200 OF THE MOST PROMINENT PERSONAGES IN HISTORY
+
+
+VOL. VI.
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1894, BY SELMAR HESS
+
+edited by Charles F. Horne
+
+[Illustration: Publisher's arm.]
+
+New-York: Selmar Hess Publisher
+
+
+Copyright, 1894, by SELMAR HESS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME VI.
+
+
+  SUBJECT                         AUTHOR                          PAGE
+
+  BENEDICT ARNOLD,            _Edgar Fawcett_,                     207
+  PETER COOPER,               _Clarence Cook_,                     299
+  CHARLOTTE CORDAY,           _Oliver Optic_,                      229
+  GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER,   _Elbridge S. Brooks_,                391
+  SIR HUMPHRY DAVY,           _John Timbs, F.S.A._,                277
+  THOMAS ALVA EDISON,         _Clarence Cook_,                     404
+  JOHN ERICSSON,              _Martha J. Lamb_,                    311
+  CYRUS W. FIELD,             _Murat Halstead_,                    354
+  GENERAL JOHN C. FREMONT,    _Jane Marsh Parker_,                 340
+  ROBERT FULTON,              _Oliver Optic_,                      267
+  WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON,     _William Lloyd Garrison_,            318
+  GENERAL CHARLES GEORGE
+    GORDON,                   _Colonel R. H. Veitch, R.E._,        384
+  NATHAN HALE,                _Rev. Edward Everett Hale_,          212
+  ANDREAS HOFER,                                                   246
+  DR. EDWARD JENNER,          _John Timbs, F.S.A._,                263
+  ELISHA KENT KANE,           _General A. W. Greely_,              325
+  THADDEUS KOSCIUSKO,                                              216
+  LOUIS KOSSUTH,                                                   304
+  MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE,      _William F. Peck_,     221
+  FERDINAND DE LESSEPS,       _Clarence Cook_,     334
+  DAVID LIVINGSTONE,          _Professor W. G. Blaikie, L.L.D._,   350
+  _Letter of Affection and
+    Advice from Livingstone
+    to his Children_,                                              353
+  QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA,    _Mrs. Francis G. Faithfull_,         249
+  MARIE ANTOINETTE,           _Mrs. Octavius Freire Owen_,         241
+  _Letter to Marie Antoinette
+    from Maria Theresa on the
+    Duties of a Sovereign_,                                        242
+  SAMUEL F. B. MORSE,                                              297
+  FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE,       _Lizzie Alldridge_,                  369
+  DR. LOUIS PASTEUR,          _Dr. Cyrus Edson_,                   378
+  MADAME ROLAND,              _Ella Wheeler Wilcox_,               233
+  GENERAL SAN MARTIN,         _Hezekiah Butterworth_,              281
+  HENRY M. STANLEY,           _Noah Brooks_,                       395
+  GEORGE STEPHENSON,          _Professor C. M. Woodward_,          286
+  QUEEN VICTORIA,             _Donald Macleod, D.D._,              361
+  JAMES WATT,                 _John Timbs, F.S.A._,                256
+  WILLIAM WILBERFORCE,                                             272
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+VOLUME VI.
+
+
+PHOTOGRAVURES
+
+  ILLUSTRATION                           ARTIST              TO FACE PAGE
+
+  MME. ROLAND IN THE PRISON OF
+    STE. PELAGIE,                     _Evariste Carpentier_ _Frontispiece_
+  THE ARCH OF STEEL,                  _Jean Paul Laurens_          224
+  CHARLOTTE CORDAY AND MARAT,         _Paul-Jacques-Aime Baudry_   230
+  MARIE ANTOINETTE,                   _Theophile Gide_             244
+  QUEEN LOUISE VISITING THE POOR,     _Hugo Haendler_               250
+  THE FIRST VACCINATION--DR. JENNER,  _Georges-Gaston Melingue_    266
+  VICTORIA GREETED AS QUEEN,          _H. T. Wells_                362
+  PASTEUR IN HIS LABORATORY,          _Albert Edelfelt_            380
+
+
+
+
+WOOD-ENGRAVINGS AND TYPOGRAVURES
+
+  ANDREAS HOFER LED TO EXECUTION,     _Franz Defregger_            248
+  WATT DISCOVERING THE CONDENSATION
+    OF STEAM,                         _Marcus Stone_               256
+  SAMUEL F. B. MORSE, INVENTOR OF
+    THE TELEGRAPH,                    _From a photograph_          298
+  CUTTING THE CANAL AT PANAMA,        _Melton Prior_               338
+  WINDSOR CASTLE,                     _G. Montbard_                364
+  GORDON ATTACKED BY EL MAHDI'S
+    ARABS,                            _W. H. Overend_              388
+  CUSTER'S LAST FIGHT,                _A. R. Ward_                 394
+  STANLEY SHOOTING THE RAPIDS OF
+    THE CONGO,                        _W. H. Overend_              400
+  THOMAS A. EDISON--THE WIZARD OF
+    MENLO PARK,                                                    406
+
+
+
+
+BENEDICT ARNOLD[1]
+
+         [Footnote 1: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By EDGAR FAWCETT
+
+(1741-1801)
+
+[Illustration: Benedict Arnold.]
+
+
+Some of Arnold's biographers have declared that he was a very
+vicious boy, and have chiefly illustrated this fact by painting him
+as a ruthless robber of birds'-nests. But a great many boys who
+began life by robbing birds'-nests have ended it much more
+creditably. The astonishing and interesting element in Benedict
+Arnold's career was what one might term the anomaly and incongruity
+of his treason. Born at Norwich, Conn., in 1741, he was blessed from
+his earliest years by wholesome parental influences. The education
+which he received was an excellent one, considering his colonial
+environment. Tales of his boyish pluck and hardihood cannot be
+disputed, while others that record his youthful cruelty are
+doubtless the coinings of slander. It is certain that in 1755, when
+the conflict known as "the old French war" first broke out, he gave
+marked proof of patriotism, though as yet the merest lad. Later, at
+the very beginning of the Revolution, he left his thriving business
+as a West India merchant in New Haven and headed a company of
+volunteers. Before the end of 1775 he had been made a commissioned
+colonel by the authorities of Massachusetts, and had marched through
+a sally-port, capturing the fortress of Ticonderoga, with tough old
+Ethan Allen at his side and 83 "Green Mountain Boys" behind him.
+Later, at the siege of Quebec, he behaved with splendid courage.
+Through great difficulties and hardships he dauntlessly led his band
+to the high-perched and almost impregnable town. Pages might be
+filled in telling how toilsome was this campaign, now requiring
+canoes and bateaux, now taxing the strength of its resolute little
+horde with rough rocks, delusive bogs and all those fiercest
+terrors of famine which lurk in a virgin wilderness. Bitter cold,
+unmerciful snow-falls, drift-clogged streams, pelting storms, were
+constant features of Arnold's intrepid march. When we realize the
+purely unselfish and disinterested motive of this march, which has
+justly been compared to that of Xenophon with his 10,000, and to the
+retreat of Napoleon from Moscow as well, we stand aghast at the
+possibility of its having been planned and executed by one who
+afterward became the basest of traitors.
+
+During the siege of Quebec Arnold was severely wounded, and yet he
+obstinately kept up the blockade even while he lay in the hospital,
+beset by obstacles, of which bodily pain was doubtless not the
+least. The arrival of General Wooster from Montreal with
+reinforcements rid Arnold, however, of all responsibility. Soon
+afterward the scheme of capturing Quebec and inducing the Canadas to
+join the cause of the United Colonies, came to an abrupt end. But in
+his desire to effect this purpose Arnold had identified himself with
+such lovers of their country as Washington, Schuyler, and
+Montgomery. And if the gallant Montgomery had then survived and
+Arnold had been killed, history could not sufficiently have
+eulogized him as a hero. Soon afterward he was promoted to the rank
+of brigadier-general, and on October 11, 1776, while commanding a
+flotilla of small vessels on Lake Champlain, he gained new celebrity
+for courage. The enemy was greatly superior in number to Arnold's
+forces. "They had," says Bancroft, "more than twice his weight of
+metal and twice as many fighting vessels, and skilled seamen and
+officers against landsmen." Arnold was not victorious in this naval
+fray, but again we find him full of lion-like valor. He was in the
+Congress galley, and there with his own hands often aimed the cannon
+on its bloody decks against the swarming masses of British gunboats.
+Arnold's popularity was very much augmented by his fine exploits on
+Lake Champlain. "With consummate address," says Sparks, "he
+penetrated the enemy's lines and brought off his whole fleet,
+shattered and disabled as it was, and succeeded in saving six of his
+vessels, and, it might be added, most of his men." Again, at the
+battle of Danbury he tempted death countless times; and at Loudon's
+Ferry and Bemis's Heights his prowess and nerve were the perfection
+of martial merit. It has been stated by one or two historians of
+good repute that Arnold was not present at all during the battle of
+Saratoga; but the latest and most trustworthy researches on this
+point would seem to indicate that he commanded there with discretion
+and skill. He was now a major-general, but his irascible spirit had
+previously been hurt by the tardiness with which this honor was
+conferred upon him, five of his juniors having received it before
+himself. He strongly disliked General Gates, too, and quarrelled
+with him because of what he held to be unfair behavior during the
+engagement at Bemis's Heights. At Stillwater, a month or so later in
+the same year (1777), he issued orders without Gates's permission,
+and conducted himself on the field with a kind of mad frenzy, riding
+hither and thither and seeking the most dangerous spots. All concur
+in stating, however, that his disregard of life was admirable, in
+spite of its foolish rashness. In this action he was also severely
+wounded.
+
+One year later he was appointed to the command of Philadelphia, and
+here he married the daughter of a prominent citizen, Edward Shippen.
+This was his second marriage; he had been a widower for a number of
+years before its occurrence, and the father of three sons. Every
+chance was now afforded Arnold of wise and just rulership. In spite
+of past disputes and adventures not wholly creditable, he still
+presented before the world a fairly clean record, and whatever minor
+blemishes may have spotted his good name, these were obscured by the
+almost dazzling lustre of his soldierly career. But no sooner was he
+installed in his new position at Philadelphia than he began to show,
+with wilful perversity, those evil impulses which thus far had
+remained relatively latent. Almost as soon as he entered the town he
+disclosed to its citizens the most offensive traits of arrogance and
+tyranny. But this was not all. Not merely was he accused on every
+side of such faults as the improper issuing of passes, the closing
+of Philadelphia shops on his arrival, the imposition of menial
+offices upon the sons of freemen performing military duty, the use
+of wagons furnished by the State for transporting private property;
+but misdeeds of a far graver nature were traced to him, savoring of
+the criminality that prisons are built to punish. The scandalous
+gain with which he sought to fill a spendthrift purse caused wide
+and vehement rebuke. For a man of such high and peculiar place his
+commercial dabblings and speculative schemes argued most deplorably
+against him. There seems to be no doubt that he made personal use of
+the public moneys with which he was intrusted; that he secured by
+unworthy and illegal means a naval State prize, brought into port by
+a Pennsylvanian ship; and that he meditated the fitting up of a
+privateer, with intent to secure from the foe such loot on the high
+seas as piratical hazard would permit. His house in Philadelphia was
+one of the finest that the town possessed; he drove about in a
+carriage and four; he entertained with excessive luxury and a large
+retinue of servants; he revelled in all sorts of pompous parade.
+Such ostentation would have roused adverse comment amid the simple
+colonial surroundings of a century ago, even if he had merely been a
+citizen of extraordinary wealth. But being an officer intrusted with
+the most important dignities in a country both struggling for its
+freedom and impoverished as to funds, he now played a part of
+exceptional shame and folly.
+
+Naturally his arraignment before the authorities of the State soon
+followed. The Council of Pennsylvania tried him, and though their
+final verdict was an extremely gentle one, its very mildness of
+condemnation proved poison to his truculent pride. Washington, the
+commander-in-chief, reprimanded him, but with language of exquisite
+lenity. Still, Arnold never forgave the stab that was then so
+deservingly yet so pityingly dealt him.
+
+His colossal treason--one of the most monstrous in all the records
+of history, soon afterward began its wily work. Under the name of
+_Gustavus_ he opened a correspondence with Sir Henry Clinton, an
+English officer in command at New York. Sir Henry at once scented
+the sort of villainy which would be of vast use to his cause,
+however he might loathe and contemn its designer. He instructed his
+aide-de-camp, Major John Andre, to send cautious and pseudonymic
+replies. In his letters Arnold showed the burning sense of wrong
+from which he believed himself (and with a certain amount of
+justice) to be suffering. He had, when all is told, received harsh
+treatment from his country, considering how well he had served it in
+the past. Even Irving, that most dispassionate of historians, has
+called the action of the court-martial just mentioned an
+"extraordinary measure to prepossess the public mind against him."
+Beyond doubt, too, he had been repeatedly assailed by slanders and
+misstatements. The animosity of party feeling had more than once
+wrongfully assailed him, and his second marriage to the daughter of
+a man whose Tory sympathies were widely known had roused political
+hatreds, unsparing and headstrong.
+
+But these facts are merely touched upon to make more clear the
+motive of his infamous plot. Determined to give the enemy a great
+vantage in return for the pecuniary indemnity that he required of
+them, this unhappy man stooped low enough to ask and obtain from
+Washington, the command of West Point. Andre, who had for months
+written him letters in a disguised hand under the name of John
+Anderson, finally met him, one night, at the foot of a mountain
+about six miles below Stony Point, called the Long Clove. Arnold,
+with infinite cunning, had devised this meeting, and had tempted the
+adventurous spirit of Andre, who left a British man-of-war called
+the Vulture in order to hold converse with his fellow-conspirator.
+But before the unfortunate Andre could return to his ship (having
+completed his midnight confab and received from Arnold the most
+damning documentary evidence of treachery) the Vulture was fired
+upon from Teller's Point by a party of Americans, who had secretly
+carried cannon thither during the earlier night. Andre was thus
+deserted by his own countrymen, for the Vulture moved away and left
+him with a man named Joshua Smith, a minion in Arnold's employ. Of
+poor Andre's efforts to reach New York, of his capture and final
+pathetic execution, we need not speak. On his person, at the time of
+his arrest, was found a complete description of the West Point post
+and garrison--documentary evidence that scorched with indelible
+disgrace the name of the man who had supplied it.
+
+On September 25, 1780, Arnold escaped to a British sloop-of-war
+anchored below West Point. He was made a colonel in the English
+army, and is said to have received the sum of L6,315 as the price of
+his treachery. The command of a body of troops in Connecticut was
+afterward given him, and he then showed a rapacity and intolerance
+that well consorted with the new position he had so basely
+purchased. The odium of his injured countrymen spoke loudly
+throughout the land he had betrayed. He was burned in effigy
+countless times, and a growing generation was told with wrath and
+scorn the abhorrent tale of his turpitude. Meanwhile, as if by
+defiant self-assurance to wipe away the perfidy of former acts, he
+issued a proclamation to "the inhabitants of America," in which he
+strove to cleanse himself from blame. This address, teeming with
+flimsy protestations of patriotism, reviling Congress, vituperating
+France as a worthless and sordid ally of the Crown's rebellious
+subjects, met on all sides the most contemptuous derision. Arnold
+passed nearly all the remainder of his life--eleven years or
+thereabouts--in England. He died in London, worn out with a nervous
+disease, on June 14, 1801. It is a remarkable fact that his second
+wife, who had till the last remained faithful to him, suffered
+acutely at his death, and both spoke and wrote of him in accents of
+strongest bereavement.
+
+To the psychologic student of human character, Benedict Arnold
+presents a strangely fascinating picture. Elements of good were
+unquestionably factors of his mental being. But pride, revenge,
+jealousy, and an almost superhuman egotism fatally swayed him. He
+desired to lead in all things, and he had far too much vanity, far
+too little self-government, and not half enough true morality to
+lead with success and permanence in any. The wrongs which beyond
+doubt his country inflicted upon him he was incapable of bearing
+like a stoic. Virile and patriotic from one point of view, he was
+childish and weak-fibred from another. He has been likened to
+Marlborough, though by no means so great a soldier. Yet it is true
+that John Churchill won his dukedom by deserting his former
+benefactor, James II, and joining the Whig cause of William of
+Orange. If the Revolution had been crushed, we cannot blind our eyes
+to the fact that Arnold's treason would have received from history
+far milder dealing than is accorded it now. Even the radiant name of
+Washington would very probably have shone to us dimmed and blurred
+through a mist of calamity. Posterity may respect the patriot whose
+star sinks in unmerited failure, but it bows homage to him if he
+wages against despotism a victorious fight. Supposing that Arnold's
+surrender of West Point had extinguished that splendid spark of
+liberty which glowed primarily at Lexington and Bunker Hill, the
+chances are that he might have received an English peerage and died
+in all the odor of a distinction as brilliant as it would have been
+undeserved. The triumph of the American rebellion so soon after he
+had ignominiously washed his hands of it, sealed forever his own
+social doom. That, it is certain, was most severe and drastic. The
+money paid him by the British Government was accursed as were the
+thirty silver pieces of Iscariot; for his passion to speculate
+ruined him financially some time before the end of his life, and he
+breathed his last amid comparative poverty and the dread of still
+darker reverses.
+
+Extreme sensitiveness is apt to accompany a spirit of just his
+high-strung, petulant, and spleenful sort. Beyond doubt he must have
+suffered keen torments at the disdain with which he was everywhere
+met in English society, and chiefly among the military officers whom
+his very conduct, renegade though it was, had in a measure forced to
+recognize him. When Lord Cornwallis gave his sword to Washington,
+its point pierced Arnold's breast with a wound rankling and
+incurable. He had played for high stakes with savage and devilish
+desperation. Our national independence meant his future slavery; our
+priceless gain became his irretrievable loss. It is stated that as
+death approached him he grew excessively anxious about the risky and
+shattered state of his affairs. His mind wandered, as Mrs. Arnold
+writes, and he fancied himself once more fighting those battles
+which had brought him honor and fame. It was then that he would call
+for his old insignia of an American soldier and would desire to be
+again clothed in them. "Bring me, I beg of you," he is reported to
+have said, "the epaulettes and sword-knots which Washington gave me.
+Let me die in my old American uniform, the uniform in which I fought
+my battles!" And once, it is declared, he gave vent to these most
+significant and terrible words: "God forgive me for ever putting on
+any other!" That country which he forswore in the hour of its direst
+need can surely afford to forgive Benedict Arnold as well. Grown the
+greatest republic of which history keeps any record, America need
+not find it difficult both to forget the wretched frailties of this,
+her grossly misguided son, and at the same time to remember what
+services he performed for her while as yet his baleful qualities had
+not swept beyond all bounds of restraint.
+
+[Signature: Edgar Fawcett.]
+
+
+
+
+NATHAN HALE[2]
+
+         [Footnote 2: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By Rev. EDWARD EVERETT HALE
+
+(1755-1776)
+
+[Illustration: Nathan Hale.]
+
+
+Nathan Hale, a martyr soldier of the American Revolution, was born
+in Coventry, Conn., on June 6, 1755. When but little more than
+twenty-one years old he was hanged, by order of General William
+Howe, as a spy, in the city of New York, on September 22, 1776.
+
+At the great centennial celebration of the Revolution, and the part
+which the State of Connecticut bore in it, an immense assembly of
+the people of Connecticut, on the heights of Groton, took measures
+for the erection of a statue in Hale's honor. Their wish has been
+carried out by their agents in the government of the State. A bronze
+statue of Hale is in the State Capitol. Another bronze statue of him
+has been erected in the front of the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford.
+Another is in the city of New York.
+
+Nathan Hale's father was Richard Hale, who had emigrated to
+Coventry, from Newbury, Mass., in 1746, and had married Elizabeth,
+the daughter of Joseph Strong. By her he had twelve children, of
+whom Nathan was the sixth.
+
+Richard Hale was a prosperous and successful farmer. He sent to Yale
+College at one time his two sons, Enoch and Nathan, who had been
+born within two years of each other. This college was then under the
+direction of Dr. Daggett. Both the young men enjoyed study, and
+Nathan Hale, at the exercises of Commencement Day took what is
+called a part, which shows that he was among the thirteen scholars
+of highest rank in his class.
+
+From the record of the college society to which he belonged, it
+appears that he was interested in their theatrical performances.
+These were not discouraged by the college government, and made a
+recognized part of the amusements of the college and the town. Many
+of the lighter plays brought forward on the English stage were thus
+produced by the pupils of Yale College for the entertainment of the
+people of New Haven.
+
+When he graduated, at the age of eighteen, he probably intended at
+some time to become a Christian minister, as his brother Enoch did.
+But, as was almost a custom of the time, he began his active life as
+a teacher in the public schools, and early in 1774 accepted an
+appointment as the teacher of the Union Grammar School, a school
+maintained by the gentlemen of New London, Conn., for the higher
+education of their children. Of thirty-two pupils, he says, "ten are
+Latiners and all but one of the rest are writers."
+
+In his commencement address Hale had considered the question whether
+the higher education of women were not neglected. And, in the
+arrangement of the Union School at New London, it was determined
+that between the hours of five and seven in the morning, he should
+teach a class of "twenty young ladies" in the studies which occupied
+their brothers at a later hour.
+
+He was thus engaged in the year 1774. The whole country was alive
+with the movements and discussions which came to a crisis in the
+battle of Lexington the next year. Hale, though not of age, was
+enrolled in the militia and was active in the military organization
+of the town.
+
+So soon as the news of Lexington and Concord reached New London, a
+town-meeting was called. At this meeting, this young man, not yet of
+age, was one of the speakers. "Let us march immediately," he said,
+"and never lay down our arms until we obtain our independence." He
+assembled his school as usual the next day, but only to take leave
+of his scholars. "He gave them earnest counsel, prayed with them,
+shook each by the hand," and bade them farewell.
+
+It is said that there is no other record so early as this in which
+the word "independence" was publicly spoken. It would seem as if the
+uncalculating courage of a boy of twenty were needed to break the
+spell which still gave dignity to colonial submission.
+
+He was commissioned as First Lieutenant in the Seventh Connecticut
+regiment, and resigned his place as teacher. The first duty assigned
+to the regiment was in the neighborhood of New London, where,
+probably, they were perfecting their discipline. On September 14,
+1775, they were ordered by Washington to Cambridge. There they were
+placed on the left wing of his army, and made their camp at the foot
+of Winter Hill. This was the post which commanded the passage from
+Charlestown, one of the only two roads by which the English could
+march out from Boston. Here they remained until the next spring.
+Hale himself gives the most interesting details of that great
+victory by which Washington and his officers changed that force of
+minute-men, by which they had overawed Boston in 1775, into a
+regular army. Hale re-enlisted as many of the old men as possible,
+and then went back to Coventry to engage, from his old school
+companions, soldiers for the war. After a month of such effort at
+home, he came back with a body of recruits to Roxbury.
+
+On January 30th his regiment was removed to the right wing in
+Roxbury. Here they joined in the successful night enterprise of
+March 4th and 5th, by which the English troops were driven from
+Boston.
+
+So soon as the English army had left the country, Washington knew
+that their next point of attack would be New York. Most of his army
+was, therefore, sent there, and Webb's regiment among the rest. They
+were at first assigned to the Canada army, but because they had a
+good many seafaring men, were reserved for service near New York,
+where their "web-footed" character served them well more than once
+that summer. Hale marched with the regiment to New London, whence
+they all went by water to New York. On that critical night, when the
+whole army was moved across to New York after the defeat at
+Brooklyn, the regiment rendered effective service.
+
+It was at this period that Hale planned an attack, made by members
+of his own company, to set fire to the frigate Phoenix. The frigate
+was saved, but one of her tenders and four cannons and six swivels
+were taken. The men received the thanks, praises, and rewards of
+Washington, and the frigate, with her companions, not caring to risk
+such attacks again, retired to the Narrows. Soon after this little
+brush with the enemy, Colonel Knowlton, of one of the Connecticut
+regiments, organized a special corps, which was known as Knowlton's
+Rangers. On the rolls of their own regiments the officers and men
+are spoken of as "detached on command." They received their orders
+direct from Washington and Putnam, and were kept close in front of
+the enemy, watching his movements from the American line in Harlem.
+It was in this service, on September 15th, that Knowlton's Rangers,
+with three Virginia companies, drove the English troops from their
+position in an open fight. It was a spirited action, which was a
+real victory for the attacking force. Knowlton and Leitch, the
+leaders, were both killed. In his general orders Washington spoke of
+Knowlton as a gallant and brave officer who would have been an honor
+to any country.
+
+But Hale, alas! was not fighting at Knowlton's side. He was indeed
+"detached for special service." Washington had been driven up the
+island of New York, and was holding his place with the utmost
+difficulty. On September 6th he wrote, "We have not been able to
+obtain the least information as to the enemy's plans." In sheer
+despair at the need of better information than the Tories of New
+York City would give him, the great commander consulted his council,
+and at their direction summoned Knowlton to ask for some volunteer
+of intelligence, who would find his way into the English lines, and
+bring back some tidings that could be relied upon. Knowlton summoned
+a number of officers, and stated to them the wishes of their great
+chief. The appeal was received with dead silence. It is said that
+Knowlton personally addressed a non-commissioned officer, a
+Frenchman, who was an old soldier. He did so only to receive the
+natural reply, "I am willing to be shot, but not to be hung."
+Knowlton felt that he must report his failure to Washington. But
+Nathan Hale, his youngest captain, broke the silence. "I will
+undertake it," he said. He had come late to the meeting. He was pale
+from recent sickness. But he saw an opportunity to serve, and he did
+the duty which came next his hand.
+
+William Hull, afterward the major-general who commanded at Detroit,
+had been Hale's college classmate. He remonstrated with his friend
+on the danger of the task, and the ignominy which would attend its
+failure. "He said to him that it was not in the line of his duty,
+and that he was of too frank and open a temper to act successfully
+the part of a spy, or to face its dangers, which would probably lead
+to a disgraceful death." Hale replied, "I wish to be useful, and
+every kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honorable
+by being necessary. If the exigencies of my country demand a
+peculiar service, its claims to perform that service are imperious."
+These are the last words of his which can be cited until those which
+he spoke at the moment of his death. He promised Hull to take his
+arguments into consideration, but Hull never heard from him again.
+
+In the second week of September he left the camp for Stamford with
+Stephen Hempstead, a sergeant in Webb's regiment, from whom we have
+the last direct account of his journey. With Hempstead and Asher
+Wright, who was his servant in camp, he left his uniform and some
+other articles of property. He crossed to Long Island in citizen's
+dress, and, as Hempstead thought, took with him his college diploma,
+meaning to assume the aspect of a Connecticut schoolmaster visiting
+New York in the hope to establish himself. He landed near
+Huntington, or Oyster Bay, and directed the boatman to return at a
+time fixed by him, the 20th of September. He made his way into New
+York, and there, for a week or more apparently, prosecuted his
+inquiries. He returned on the day fixed, and awaited his boat. It
+appeared, as he thought; and he made a signal from the shore. Alas!
+he had mistaken the boat. She was from an English frigate, which lay
+screened by a point of woods, and had come in for water. Hale
+attempted to retrace his steps, but was too late. He was seized and
+examined. Hidden in the soles of his shoes were his memoranda, in
+the Latin language. They compromised him at once. He was carried on
+board the frigate, and sent to New York the same day, well guarded.
+
+It was at an unfortunate moment, if anyone expected tenderness from
+General Howe. Hale landed while the city was in the tenor of the
+great conflagration of September 21st. In that fire nearly a quarter
+of the town was burned down. The English supposed, rightly or not,
+that the fire had been begun by the Americans. The bells had been
+taken from the churches by order of the Provincial Congress. The
+fire-engines were out of order, and for a time it seemed impossible
+to check the flames. Two hundred persons were sent to jail upon the
+supposition that they were incendiaries. It is in the midst of such
+confusion that Hale is taken to General Howe's head-quarters, and
+there he meets his doom.
+
+No testimony could be stronger against him than the papers on his
+person. He was not there to prevaricate, and he told them his rank
+and name. There was no trial, and Howe at once ordered that he
+should be hanged the next morning. Worse than this, had he known it,
+he was to be hanged by William Cunningham, the Provost-Major, a man
+whose brutality, through the war disgraced the British army. It is a
+satisfaction to know that Cunningham was hanged for his deserts in
+England, not many years after.[3]
+
+         [Footnote 3: Such is the current tradition and belief, that
+         he was hanged at Newgate; but Mr. George Bancroft found no
+         such name in the records of the prison.]
+
+Hale was confined for the night of September 21st in the greenhouse
+of the garden of Howe's head-quarters. This place was known as the
+Beckman Mansion, at Turtle Bay. This house was standing until within
+a few years.
+
+Early the next day he was led to his death. "On the morning of the
+execution," said Captain Montresor, an English officer, "my station
+being near the fatal spot, I requested the Provost-Marshal to permit
+the prisoner to sit in my marquee while he was making the necessary
+preparations. Captain Hale entered. He asked for writing materials,
+which I furnished him. He wrote two letters; one to his mother and
+one to a brother officer. The Provost-Marshal destroyed the letters,
+and assigned as a reason that the rebels should not know that they
+had a man in their army who could die with so much firmness."
+
+Hale asked for a Bible, but his request was refused. He was marched
+out by a guard and hanged upon an apple-tree in Rutgers's orchard.
+The place was near the present intersection of East Broadway and
+Market Streets. Cunningham asked him to make his dying "speech and
+confession." "I only regret," he said, "that I have but one life to
+lose for my country."
+
+[Signature: Edward E. Hale.]
+
+
+
+
+THADDEUS KOSCIUSKO
+
+(1746-1817)
+
+
+Among the remarkable men of modern times there is perhaps none whose
+fame is purer from reproach than that of Thaddeus Kosciusko. His
+name is enshrined in the ruins of his unhappy country, which, with
+heroic bravery and devotion, he sought to defend against foreign
+oppression and foreign domination. Kosciusko was born at Warsaw
+about the year 1746. He was educated at the School of Cadets, in
+that city, where he distinguished himself so much in scientific
+studies as well as in drawing, that he was selected as one of four
+students of that institution who were sent to travel at the
+expense of the state, with a view of perfecting their talents. In
+this capacity he visited France, where he remained for several
+years, devoting himself to studies of various kinds. On his return
+to his own country he entered the army, and obtained the command of
+a company. But he was soon obliged to expatriate himself again, in
+order to fly from a violent but unrequited passion for the daughter
+of the Marshal of Lithuania, one of the first officers of state of
+the Polish court.
+
+[Illustration: Thaddeus Kosciusko.]
+
+He bent his steps to that part of North America which was then
+waging its war of independence against England. Here he entered the
+army, and served with distinction as one of the adjutants of General
+Washington. While thus employed, he became acquainted with
+Lafayette, Lameth, and other distinguished Frenchmen serving in the
+same cause, and was honored by receiving the most flattering praises
+from Franklin, as well as the public thanks of the Congress of the
+United Provinces. He was also decorated with the new American order
+of Cincinnatus, being the only European, except Lafayette, to whom
+it was given.
+
+At the termination of the war he returned to his own country, where
+he lived in retirement till the year 1789, at which period he was
+promoted by the Diet to the rank of major-general. That body was at
+this time endeavoring to place its military force upon a respectable
+footing, in the vain hope of restraining and diminishing the
+domineering influence of foreign powers in what still remained of
+Poland. It also occupied itself in changing the vicious constitution
+of that unfortunate and ill-governed country--in rendering the
+monarchy hereditary, in declaring universal toleration, and in
+preserving the privileges of the nobility, while at the same time it
+ameliorated the condition of the lower orders. In all these
+improvements Stanislas Poniatowski, the reigning king, readily
+concurred; though the avowed intention of the Diet was to render the
+crown hereditary in the Saxon family. The King of Prussia (Frederick
+William II.), who, from the time of the treaty of Cherson, in 1787,
+between Russia and Austria, had become hostile to the former power,
+also encouraged the Poles in their proceedings; and even gave them
+the most positive assurances of assisting them, in case the changes
+they were effecting occasioned any attacks from other sovereigns.
+
+Russia at length, having made peace with the Turks, prepared to
+throw her sword into the scale. A formidable opposition to the
+measures of the Diet had arisen, even among the Poles themselves,
+and occasioned what was called the confederation of Targowicz, to
+which the Empress of Russia promised her assistance. The feeble
+Stanislas, who had proclaimed the new constitution in 1791, bound
+himself in 1792 to sanction the Diet of Grodno, which restored the
+ancient constitution, with all its vices and all its abuses. In the
+meanwhile Frederick William, King of Prussia, who had so mainly
+contributed to excite the Poles to their enterprises, basely
+deserted them, and refused to give them any assistance. On the
+contrary, he stood aloof from the contest, waiting for that share of
+the spoil which the haughty empress of the north might think proper
+to allot to him, as a reward of his non-interference.
+
+But though thus betrayed on all sides, the Poles were not disposed
+to submit without a struggle. They flew to arms, and found in the
+nephew of their king, the Prince Joseph Poniatowski, a general
+worthy to conduct so glorious a cause. Under his command Kosciusko
+first became known in European warfare. He distinguished himself in
+the battle of Zielenec, and still more in that of Dubienska, which
+took place on June 18, 1792. Upon this latter occasion he defended
+for six hours, with only 4,000 men, against 15,000 Russians, a post
+which had been slightly fortified in twenty-four hours, and at last
+retired with inconsiderable loss.
+
+But the contest was too unequal to last; the patriots were
+overwhelmed by enemies from without, and betrayed by traitors
+within, at the head of whom was their own sovereign. The Russians
+took possession of the country, and proceeded to appropriate those
+portions of Lithuania and Volhynia which suited their convenience;
+while Prussia, the friendly Prussia, invaded another part of the
+kingdom.
+
+Under these circumstances the most distinguished officers in the
+Polish army retired from the service, and of this number was
+Kosciusko. Miserable at the fate of his unhappy country, and at the
+same time an object of suspicion to the ruling powers, he left his
+native land and retired to Leipsic, where he received intelligence
+of the honor which had been conferred upon him by the Legislative
+Assembly of France, who had invested him with the quality of a
+French citizen.
+
+But his fellow-countrymen were still anxious to make another
+struggle for independence, and they unanimously selected Kosciusko
+as their chief and generalissimo. He obeyed the call, and found the
+patriots eager to combat under his orders. Even the noble Joseph
+Poniatowski, who had previously commanded in chief, returned from
+France, whither he had retired, and received from the hands of
+Kosciusko the charge of a portion of his army.
+
+The patriots had risen in the north of Poland, to which part
+Kosciusko first directed his steps. Anxious to begin his campaign
+with an action of vigor, he marched rapidly toward Cracow, which
+town he entered triumphantly on March 24, 1794. He forthwith
+published a manifesto against the Russians; and then, at the head of
+only 5,000 men, he marched to meet their army. He encountered, on
+April 4th, 10,000 Russians at a place called Wraclawic, and entirely
+defeated them after a combat of four hours. He returned in triumph
+to Cracow, and shortly afterward marched along the left bank of the
+Vistula to Polaniec, where he established his head-quarters.
+
+Meanwhile the inhabitants of Warsaw, animated by the recital of the
+heroic deeds of their countrymen, had also raised the standard of
+independence, and were successful in driving the Russians from the
+city, after a murderous conflict of three days. In Lithuania and
+Samogitia an equally successful revolution was effected before the
+end of April, while the Polish troops stationed in Volhynia and
+Podolia marched to the reinforcement of Kosciusko.
+
+Thus far fortune seemed to smile upon the cause of Polish
+freedom--the scene was, however, about to change. The undaunted
+Kosciusko, having first organized a national council to conduct the
+affairs of government, once more advanced against the Russians. On
+his march he met a new enemy in the person of the faithless
+Frederick William, of Prussia, who, without having even gone through
+the preliminary of declaring war, had advanced into Poland at the
+head of 40,000 men.
+
+Kosciusko, with but 13,000 men, attacked the Prussian army on June
+8th, at Szcekociny. The battle was long and bloody; at length,
+overwhelmed by numbers, he was obliged to retreat toward Warsaw.
+This he effected in so able a manner that his enemies did not dare
+to harass him in his march; and he effectually covered the capital
+and maintained his position for two months against vigorous and
+continued attacks. Immediately after this reverse the Polish
+general, Zaionczeck, lost the battle of Chelm, and the Governor of
+Cracow had the baseness to deliver the town to the Prussians without
+attempting a defence.
+
+These disasters occasioned disturbances among the disaffected at
+Warsaw, which, however, were put down by the vigor and firmness of
+Kosciusko. On July 13th the forces of the Prussians and Russians,
+amounting to 50,000 men, assembled under the walls of Warsaw, and
+commenced the siege of that city. After six weeks spent before the
+place, and a succession of bloody conflicts, the confederates were
+obliged to raise the siege; but this respite to the Poles was but of
+short duration.
+
+Their enemies increased fearfully in number, while their own
+resources diminished. Austria now determined to assist in the
+annihilation of Poland, and caused a body of her troops to enter
+that kingdom. Nearly at the same moment the Russians ravaged
+Lithuania; and the two corps of the Russian army commanded by
+Suwarof and Fersen, effected their junction in spite of the battle
+of Krupezyce, which the Poles had ventured upon, with doubtful
+issue, against the first of these commanders, on September 16th.
+
+Upon receiving intelligence of these events Kosciusko left Warsaw,
+and placed himself at the head of the Polish army. He was attacked
+by the very superior forces of the confederates on October 10, 1794,
+at a place called Macieiowice, and for many hours supported the
+combat against overwhelming odds. At length he was severely wounded,
+and as he fell, he uttered the prophetic words "_Finis Poloniae_." It
+is asserted that he had exacted from his followers an oath, not to
+suffer him to fall alive into the hands of the Russians, and that in
+consequence the Polish cavalry, being unable to carry him off,
+inflicted some severe sabre wounds on him and left him for dead on
+the field; a savage fidelity, which we half admire even in
+condemning it. Be this as it may, he was recognized and delivered
+from the plunderers by some Cossack chiefs; and thus was saved from
+death to meet a scarcely less harsh fate--imprisonment in a Russian
+dungeon.
+
+Thomas Wawrzecki became the successor of Kosciusko in the command of
+the army; but with the loss of their heroic leader all hope had
+deserted the breasts of the Poles. They still, however, fought with
+all the obstinacy of despair, and defended the suburb of Warsaw,
+called Praga, with great gallantry. At length this post was wrested
+from them. Warsaw itself capitulated on November 9, 1794; and this
+calamity was followed by the entire dissolution of the Polish army
+on the 18th of the same month.
+
+During this time, Kosciusko remained in prison at St. Petersburg;
+but, at the end of two years, the death of his persecutress, the
+Empress Catharine, released him. One of the first acts of the
+Emperor Paul was to restore him to liberty, and to load him with
+various marks of his favor. Among other gifts of the autocrat was a
+pension, by which, however, the high-spirited patriot would never
+consent to profit. No sooner was he beyond the reach of Russian
+influence than he returned to the donor the instrument by which this
+humiliating favor was conferred. From this period the life of
+Kosciusko was passed in retirement. He went first to England, and
+then to the United States of America. He returned to the Old World
+in 1798, and took up his abode in France, where he divided his time
+between Paris and a country-house he had bought near Fontainebleau.
+While here he received the appropriate present of the sword of John
+Sobieski, which was sent to him by some of his countrymen serving in
+the French armies in Italy, who had found it in the shrine at
+Loretto.
+
+Napoleon, when about to invade Poland in 1807, wished to use the
+name of Kosciusko in order to rally the people of the country round
+his standard. The patriot, aware that no real freedom was to be
+hoped for under such auspices, at once refused to lend himself to
+his wishes. Upon this the emperor forged Kosciusko's signature to an
+address to the Poles, which was distributed throughout the country.
+Nor would he permit the injured person to deny the authenticity of
+this act in any public manner. The real state of the case was,
+however, made known to many through the private representations of
+Kosciusko; but he was never able to publish a formal denial of the
+transaction till after the fall of Napoleon.
+
+When the Russians, in 1814, had penetrated into Champagne, and were
+advancing toward Paris, they were astonished to hear that their
+former adversary was living in retirement in that part of the
+country. The circumstances of this discovery were striking. The
+commune in which Kosciusko lived was subjected to plunder, and among
+the troops thus engaged he observed a Polish regiment. Transported
+with anger, he rushed among them, and thus addressed the officers:
+"When I commanded brave soldiers they never pillaged; and I should
+have punished severely subalterns who allowed of disorders such as
+those which we see around. Still more severely should I have
+punished older officers, who authorized such conduct by their
+culpable neglect." "And who are you," was the general cry, "that you
+dare to speak with such boldness to us?" "I am Kosciusko." The
+effect was electric: the soldiery cast down their arms, prostrated
+themselves at his feet, and cast dust upon their heads according to
+a national usage, supplicating his forgiveness for the fault which
+they had committed. For twenty years the name of Kosciusko had not
+been heard in Poland save as that of an exile; yet it still retained
+its ancient power over Polish hearts; a power never used but for
+some good and generous end.
+
+The Emperor Alexander honored him with a long interview, and offered
+him an asylum in his own country. But nothing could induce Kosciusko
+again to see his unfortunate native land. In 1815 he retired to
+Soleure, in Switzerland; where he died, October 16, 1817, in
+consequence of an injury received by a fall from his horse. Not long
+before he had abolished slavery upon his Polish estate, and declared
+all his serfs entirely free, by a deed registered and executed with
+every formality that could insure the full performance of his
+intention. The mortal remains of Kosciusko were removed to Poland at
+the expense of Alexander, and have found a fitting place of rest in
+the cathedral of Cracow, between those of his companions in arms,
+Joseph Poniatowski, and the greatest of Polish warriors, John
+Sobieski.
+
+
+
+
+MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE[4]
+
+         [Footnote 4: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By WILLIAM F. PECK
+
+(1757-1834)
+
+[Illustration: Marquis de la Fayette.]
+
+
+Marie Jean Paul Roch Yves Gilbert Motier, Marquis de la Fayette,[5]
+one of the most celebrated men that France ever produced, was born
+at Chavaignac, in Auvergne, on September 6, 1757, of a noble family,
+with a long line of illustrious ancestors. Left an orphan at the age
+of thirteen, he married, three years later, his cousin Anastasie,
+Countess de Noailles. Inspired from the earliest age with a love of
+freedom and aversion to constraint, the impulses of childhood became
+the daydreams of youth and the realities of maturer life. Filled
+with enthusiastic sympathy for the struggling colonies of America in
+their contest with Great Britain, he offered his services to the
+United States, and, though his enterprise was forbidden by the
+French Government, hired a vessel, sailed for this country, landed
+at Charleston in April, 1777, and proceeded to Philadelphia. His
+advances having been treated by Congress with some coldness, by
+reason of the incessant application of other foreigners for
+commissions, he offered to serve as a volunteer and at his own
+expense. Congress may be excused for having taken him at his word;
+on July 31st it appointed him major-general, without pay the titular
+honor, which carried with it no command, being, perhaps, the highest
+ever given in America to a young man of nineteen years. Having
+accepted the cordial invitation of General Washington, the
+commander-in-chief, to live at his head-quarters and to serve on his
+staff, Lafayette was severely wounded in the leg at the battle of
+the Brandywine, on September 11th, and the intrepidity he displayed
+in that engagement was equalled by the fortitude that he evinced
+during the following winter, in which he shared the privations of
+the American army in the wretched camp at Valley Forge. His fidelity
+to Washington at this time, when the latter was maligned by secret
+foes and conspired against by Conway's cabal, cemented the
+friendship between those great men. Lafayette was soon afterward
+detached to take command of an expedition that was to set out from
+Albany, cross Lake Champlain on the ice, and invade Canada; but, on
+arriving at the intended starting-point, and finding that no
+adequate preparations had been made, he refused to repeat the
+unfortunate experiment of Montgomery and Arnold of two years before,
+and waited for suitable supplies to be sent to him before setting
+out. These came not, the ice melted in March, and he returned to
+Valley Forge, with the thanks of Congress for his forbearance in
+abstaining from risking the loss of an army in order to acquire
+personal glory. France having declared war against England, May 2,
+1778, and at the same time effected an alliance with the colonies,
+Lafayette returned home in January, 1779; on his arrival at Paris he
+was lionized and feted, and during his stay there he received from
+the United States Congress a sword with massive gold handle and
+mounting, presented to him in appreciation of his services and
+particularly of his gallantry at the battle of Monmouth, on June
+28th, in the preceding year. The high reputation that he had
+acquired in America increased his influence at home to such a degree
+that he was able to accomplish the object of his mission and procure
+money and troops from the ministry of war. These followed him to
+this country in the following year, but little was accomplished
+thereby, D'Estaing, the commander of the fleet, being blockaded in
+the harbor of Newport, and Washington being unwilling to undertake
+the contemplated attack on New York, even with the assistance of the
+French military force, without naval co-operation. In February,
+1781, Lafayette was sent with a division into Virginia, where he
+soon found himself arrayed against the British general, Lord
+Cornwallis. That distinguished officer, the best, perhaps, of all on
+that side of the conflict, expected to make short work of his
+youthful antagonist, but Lafayette, who had learned from Washington
+the art of skilful retreat combined with cautious advance,
+succeeded, after a long series of skirmishes, in shutting Cornwallis
+up in Yorktown. In September, the French fleet, under the Count de
+Grasse, appeared and landed a force of 3,000 men under the Marquis
+de St. Simon. Lafayette was urged to make the assault at once and
+gain the glory of an important capture, but a feeling of honor,
+combined possibly with prudential considerations, impelled him to
+wait for the arrival of the main allied army under Washington and
+Rochambeau. They came a fortnight later, the investment was
+regularly made, and on October 14th Lafayette successfully led the
+Americans to the assault of one of the redoubts, while another was
+taken by the French under the Baron de Viomesnil. The surrender of
+Cornwallis, with his army of 7,000, took place on the 19th, which
+ended, practically, the American war of independence, though the
+final treaty of peace was not signed till January 20, 1783, the
+first knowledge of which came to Congress by a letter from
+Lafayette, who had returned to Europe in the meantime. Revisiting
+the United States in 1784, he was treated with great consideration
+by his old comrades in arms, and the next year he travelled through
+Russia, Austria, and Prussia, in the last of which he attended the
+military reviews of Frederick the Great in company with that
+renowned soldier.
+
+         [Footnote 5: The condensed form of the name, when used apart
+         from the title, is preferable to the open, for, though he
+         employed the conventional style, De La Fayette, up to the
+         time of the French Revolution, he then abandoned it, and
+         always afterward wrote it as one word, Lafayette, which is
+         now the family name.]
+
+From this time Lafayette's history is bound up with that of his
+country. Beginning by formulating plans for meliorating the
+condition of the slaves on his plantation in French Guiana, his
+philanthropic thoughts soon turned homeward. He saw France groaning
+under oppression and the people suffering from a thousand antiquated
+abuses. Some of these he succeeded in mitigating, in his capacity of
+member of the Assembly of the Notables, in 1787, but, as nothing of
+permanent value was accomplished by that body, he urged the
+convocation of the States General. In this assemblage, which met at
+Versailles, on May 4, 1789, he sat at first among the nobility, but
+when the deputies of the people declared themselves to be the
+National Assembly--afterward called the Constituent Assembly--he was
+one of the earliest of his order to join them and was elected one of
+the vice-presidents. On July 14th the Bastille was taken by the mob,
+and on the following day Lafayette was chosen commandant of the
+National Guard of Paris; an irregular body, partly military, partly
+police, having no connection with the royal army and in full
+sympathy with the people, from which its ranks were filled. On the
+17th King Louis XVI. came into the city, where he was received by
+the populace with the liveliest expressions of attachment and
+escorted to the Hotel de Ville, where Lafayette and Mayor Bailly
+awaited him at the foot of the staircase, up which he passed under
+an arch of steel formed by the uplifted swords of the members of the
+Municipal Council. Bailly offered to the king a tricolor cockade,
+which had been recently adopted as the national emblem, Lafayette,
+in devising it, having added white, the Bourbon color, to the red
+and blue that were the colors of Paris, to show the fidelity of the
+people to the institution of royalty. The king accepted the badge,
+pinned it to his breast, appeared with it on the balcony before the
+vast throng, and returned to Versailles with the feeling, on his
+part and that of others, that the reconciliation between all parties
+was complete and that the era of popular government had begun.
+Instead of that, the troubles continually increased, and Lafayette
+was placed in a most trying position, equally opposed to the
+encroachments of the destructionists and to the intrigues of the
+court, and longing as eagerly for the retention of the monarchy as
+for the establishment of the constitution. The brutal murder of
+Foulon, the superintendent of the revenue, and of his son-in-law
+Berthier, who were torn in pieces by the enraged populace on the
+22d, in spite of the commands, entreaties, and even tears of
+Lafayette, so disgusted him that he resigned his command, and
+resumed it only when the sixty districts of Paris agreed to support
+him in his efforts to maintain order. On October 5th a mob of
+several thousand women set out from Paris to march to Versailles,
+with vague ideas of extorting from the National Assembly the passage
+of laws that should remove all distresses, of obtaining in some way
+a supply of food that should relieve the immediate needs of the
+capital, and of bringing back with them the royal family. The
+National Guard were urgent to accompany the women, partly from a
+desire to protect them in case of a possible collision with the
+royal troops, but still more to bring on a conflict with a regiment
+lately brought from the frontier, and to exterminate the body-guard
+of the king, the members of which had, at a supper given a few
+nights before, been so indiscreet as to trample the tricolor under
+their feet and pin the white cockade to their lapels. Lafayette did
+all in his power to prevent the march of the National Guard, sitting
+on his horse for eight hours in their midst, and refusing all their
+entreaties to give the word of command, till the Municipal Council
+finally issued the order and the troops set forth. Arrived at
+Versailles he posted one of his regiments in different parts of the
+palace, to protect it in case it were really attacked by rioters,
+and then, in the early morning, repairing to his head-quarters in an
+adjoining street, he threw himself on a bed, for a short season of
+necessary repose. Monarchical writers generally have reproached him
+for this act, calling it his "fatal sleep," the source of unnumbered
+woes, the beginning of the downfall; but it is difficult to see
+wherein he can justly be blamed for yielding, wearied out with
+fatigue, to the imperative demand of nature, after providing as far
+as possible for the preservation of order. Awakened in a few minutes
+by the report that the worst had happened, he hurried to the scene
+and found that the mob, having broken down the iron railings of the
+courtyard, had invaded the palace and massacred two of the
+body-guard, and that the lives of the king and queen were in instant
+peril. With characteristic courage, activity, and address he
+prevented the further effusion of blood, and the entire royal
+family, together with the Assembly, migrated to Paris the same day,
+escorted by the citizen soldiers and a turbulent mob both male and
+female. July 14, 1790, was memorable for the Oath of Federation,
+taken in the Champ de Mars, with imposing ceremonies, upon a
+platform of earth raised by the voluntary labors of all the
+citizens. Lafayette, as representative of the nation, and
+particularly of the militia, was the first to take the oath to be
+faithful to the law and the king and to support the constitution
+then under consideration by the Assembly. With a shout of
+affirmation from all of the National Guard, the taking of the entire
+oath by the president of the Assembly and the king, followed by a
+roar of assent from nearly half a million of spectators, and the
+joyful spreading of the news throughout the country by prearranged
+signals, the dream of peace and harmony came back again, as bright
+and as fleeting as the year before. Three days later the National
+Guard of France, outside of the city, united in an address to
+Lafayette, expressive of their confidence in his ability and his
+patriotism, and regretting their inability to serve under him, for,
+by the terms of a law proposed by himself, the commander of the
+militia of Paris was to have no authority over other troops. In
+September the municipality made a strong appeal to him to revoke his
+declaration that he would accept no pay or salary or indemnity of
+any kind, but he refused fixedly, saying that his fortune was
+considerable, that it had sufficed for two revolutions and that it
+would be devoted to a third, if one should arise, for the benefit of
+the people. By the death of Mirabeau, April 2, 1791, the last chance
+of a compromise between the court party and the radicals was taken
+away. Two weeks later the royal family attempted to leave the
+Tuileries for St. Cloud, in order to pass the Easter holidays there
+and to hear mass in the royal chapel; but the populace blocked the
+way, and even a portion of the National Guard, in a state of
+semi-mutiny, threatened to interfere if the other battalions fired
+on the people. This, nevertheless, Lafayette offered to do, and to
+force a passage at all hazards, but the king positively forbade the
+shedding of blood on his account, and resumed his virtual
+imprisonment in the palace. Lafayette was so chagrined by the
+seditious behavior of his troops that he again threw down his
+commission, whereupon an extraordinary revulsion of feeling took
+place; the municipality and the citizens were terror-stricken lest
+universal anarchy should ensue, and even the National Guard,
+repentant of their disgraceful conduct, cast themselves at the feet
+of their general, joining their voices to those of others in
+entreating him to resume his office, which, after three days, he
+consented to do, upon promise of obedience in the future.
+
+[Illustration: The Arch of Steel.]
+
+This was the meridian of Lafayette's career, when his popularity and
+his influence were at their height. Power we can hardly call it, for
+that implies some voluntary deed of assumption, and he always acted
+in obedience to others, to some authority constituted at least under
+the forms of law, or, in the absence of that, to the sovereign
+people. From this time difficulties thickened around him and he was
+constantly environed by suspicion and by intrigues of all kinds
+against his character and his life, but he never swerved from the
+line of his duty. Not one of the political parties gave him its
+entire confidence, and each in turn conspired against him, only to
+be baffled by the underlying conviction, on the part of the masses,
+of his supreme patriotism and integrity. After the flight of the
+king and his family, on June 20th, Lafayette was violently denounced
+in the Jacobin club as a friend to royalty, and accused of having
+assisted in the evasion; but the attempt to proscribe him in the
+Assembly failed utterly, and that body appointed six commissioners
+to protect him from the sudden fury of the people. The royal
+fugitives having been stopped at Varennes and brought back to the
+Tuileries on the 25th, he saved them, by his personal efforts, from
+being torn in pieces by the mob, but was compelled to guard them
+much more strictly than before. On July 17th a disorderly assemblage
+gathered in the Champ de Mars to petition for the overthrow of the
+monarchy, and, in the tumult that ensued on the appearance of the
+troops, Lafayette ordered a volley of musketry, whereby the rioters
+were dispersed with a loss of several killed and wounded, but
+whereby, also, while that act of firmness elicited commendation from
+all lovers of order, occasion was given for further intrigues on the
+part of his enemies and the shattering of his influence among the
+lower classes. A momentary gleam of sunshine broke forth in
+September, when, the king having accepted the new constitution,
+Lafayette took advantage of the general state of good feeling
+thereby produced to propose a comprehensive act of amnesty for all
+offences committed on either side during the revolution, which was
+passed by the Constituent Assembly just before its final adjournment
+on the 30th. On that day he resigned, permanently, the command of
+the National Guard, and retired to his estate at Chavaignac, being
+followed by the most gratifying testimonials of public regard, among
+them a sword and a marble statue of Washington, presented by the
+city of Paris, and a sword cast from one of the bolts of the
+Bastille, given by his old soldiers. Contrary to his personal
+wishes, his friends and his patriotism persuaded him, in November,
+to stand as a candidate for the mayoralty of Paris, with the result
+that might have been foreseen, for Petion, being supported both by
+the Jacobins and by the court party, was elected by a large
+majority. This defeat did not prevent Lafayette's appointment, a
+month later, to the command of one of the three armies formed to
+defend the frontier against an expected invasion of the Austrians,
+the rank of lieutenant-general being given to him, with the exalted
+honor of marshal of France. War was declared against Austria, April
+20, 1792, and hostilities began, but even the active service in
+which he was engaged could not keep his thoughts from the political
+condition of the country, and on June 16th he wrote to the
+Legislative Assembly, which had succeeded the Constituent in the
+previous autumn, a letter in which he pointed out the dangers that
+menaced the nation and denounced the Jacobins as the faction whose
+growing power was full of peril to the state. Four days later the
+mob invaded the Tuileries and passed riotously through all the
+rooms, insulting in the grossest manner the royal family, who were
+compelled to stand before them and undergo this humiliation for
+three hours. On hearing of this event Lafayette hurried from his
+camp and appeared before the Assembly, entreating the punishment of
+the instigators of the outrage. His sublime audacity in thus
+opposing his own personality to the machinations of his enemies, and
+that, too, before a body already irritated by his unasked advice,
+paralyzed the fury of his adversaries, while his eloquence charmed
+the hearts of his hearers; but all was in vain, and the only result
+of this heroic action was that a decree of accusation was brought in
+against him, which was rejected by a vote of 406 to 224. Upon the
+massacre of the Swiss Guards, on August 10th, followed by the actual
+deposition and imprisonment of the king, Lafayette sounded his army
+to ascertain if they would march to Paris in defence of
+constitutional government, but he found them vacillating and
+untrustworthy. His own dismissal from command came soon after:
+orders were sent for his arrest, and nothing remained for him but
+flight.
+
+On August 19th he left the army and attempted to pass through
+Belgium on his way to England, but he was captured by Austrian
+soldiers near the frontier. He protested that he no longer held rank
+as an officer in the army and should be considered as a private
+citizen; but his rights were not respected in either capacity, for
+he was not treated as a prisoner of war neither was he arraigned as
+a criminal. On the contrary, without any charges being preferred
+against him, and without the formality of a trial of any kind, he
+was immediately thrown into prison and was detained in various
+Belgian, Prussian, and Austrian jails and fortresses for more than
+five years, the last three being passed in close confinement at
+Olmutz. An unsuccessful attempt at escape increased the severity of
+his detention, and he nearly lost his life through the hardships and
+privations that he endured, till his wife and daughters came, in
+1795, and voluntarily shared his incarceration. The only reason for
+the savage treatment that he received, unjustified by any forms of
+international, of military, or of criminal law, seems to have lain
+in the fact that he had been a member of the National Assembly and
+prominent in the constitutional struggle for liberty. A feeling of
+revenge, as mean as it was groundless--for he had done everything in
+his power to protect the dignity as well as the life of Marie
+Antoinette, the sister of the Austrian emperor--joined with a fear
+that other peoples might follow the lead of the French and overthrow
+monarchical institutions unless deterred by some world-shocking
+example, formed the mainspring of this atrocious procedure. Efforts
+were made in this country and in England to procure the release of
+the prisoner, but no governmental action was taken in that
+direction, the United States Congress declining to pass a resolution
+to that effect, so that President Washington was left alone in his
+unceasing attempts, by instructions to our ministers abroad and by a
+personal letter to the emperor, to repay some of the debt that he
+and the whole country owed to our adopted citizen. It was not till
+the successes of the French republican armies enabled General
+Bonaparte, at the instance of the Directory, to insist upon the
+liberation of Lafayette as one of the conditions of the treaty of
+Campo Formio, that he was discharged on September 19, 1797, the
+Austrian Government pretending that this was done out of regard for
+the United States of America. Passing into Denmark and Holland he
+resided in those countries for two years, when he returned to France
+only to receive from Bonaparte a significant message recommending to
+him a very quiet life, a piece of advice which, as it accorded with
+his own desires, he followed, settling down at Lagrange, an estate
+inherited by his wife, as his own property had been confiscated by
+the National Convention, which had succeeded the Legislative
+Assembly. True to the principles that he had always entertained, he
+cast his vote, in 1802, with less than nine thousand others, and in
+opposition to the suffrages of more than three-and-a-half millions,
+against the decree to make Bonaparte consul for life, writing after
+his name on the polling register the statement that he could not
+vote for such a measure till public freedom was sufficiently
+guaranteed. This insured the continued displeasure of the military
+despot, who revenged himself by refusing to Lafayette's only son,
+George Washington, the promotion that he had earned by his brilliant
+exploits in the army. President Jefferson's offer in 1803, of the
+governorship of the province of Louisiana, just after its purchase
+from France, was rejected by Lafayette, who continued in his
+retirement through the time of the empire and after the first
+restoration of the Bourbons, till the return from Elba, in March,
+1815, of Napoleon, who used every exertion to conciliate him and win
+his support. All these overtures he declined, but, on the other
+hand, accepted an election to the popular branch of the Legislature,
+of which he was chosen vice-president. After the battle of Waterloo,
+on June 18th, Napoleon returned to Paris and proposed to his council
+the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies and the assumption of
+absolutely dictatorial power; a desperate project which was
+frustrated only by the alertness, vigor, and energy of Lafayette,
+whose eloquent appeals induced the Legislature to compel the final
+abdication of the emperor, under the alternative threat of
+forfeiture and expulsion. Five commissioners, with Lafayette at the
+head, appointed by the chambers, proceeded to the head-quarters of
+the allied sovereigns, at Haguenau, to treat for peace; but, while
+negotiations were pending, the foreign armies pushed on toward the
+capital, and he returned on July 3d, to find that Paris had
+capitulated and was at the mercy of the conquerors, who dictated
+their own terms, forcibly dissolved the Corps Legislatif, and
+replaced Louis XVIII. on the throne. Lafayette retired to Lagrange,
+but was again elected, in 1817, a deputy, in spite of the strenuous
+opposition of the Government, and exerted his influence in favor of
+liberal measures, though with indifferent success. In 1824, on the
+invitation of President Monroe, he revisited this country, travelled
+through every State, was received with the highest honors by
+Congress (which voted him $200,000 and a township of land for his
+services), by legislatures, by colleges, by corporations of cities,
+by societies of all kinds by his surviving comrades of the
+revolution, and by the whole nation; took part in the laying of the
+corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument June 17, 1825, and sailed
+for home in September, on the United States frigate Brandywine,
+which had been put at his disposal by the Government. Soon after his
+return to France he was re-elected to the Corps Legislatif, and
+served as a member for most of the remainder of his life. The stupid
+tyranny of King Charles X. having caused an outbreak of the
+Parisians in July, 1830, Lafayette unhesitatingly espoused the
+popular cause, and, though nearly seventy-three years old, accepted
+the command of the National Guard; after a conflict of three days
+the royal troops gave way, the king abdicated, to be succeeded by
+the Duke of Orleans as King Louis Philippe, and Lafayette had the
+satisfaction of contributing largely to the establishment of what he
+had advocated so strongly forty years before--a constitutional
+monarchy. He died at his home, in the country, on May 20, 1834, but
+his remains were taken to Paris for interment, and as the funeral
+train passed through the streets the lamentations on every hand
+attested the affection and the sorrow of the people. Few men have
+lived who present a figure so attractive to the eye of the student;
+fewer still, so prominent on the theatre of history, who will bear,
+with so little possibility of censure, the closest scrutiny, the
+severest judgment. His actions were visible to all the world, his
+motives were transparent, his sentiments were unconcealed, his life
+was blameless. To the physical endowments of dignity of person and
+resistless charm of manner he added all desirable qualities of head
+and heart, a dauntless courage, an enthusiasm beautiful and yet
+consistent, a sublime patriotism, a disinterested generosity. If,
+with all these, he seems to have failed of achieving the highest
+success, it was because not of what he lacked but of what he
+possessed in the fullest degree, a lofty integrity that forbade him
+to pander to the passions of the mob, a supreme regard for the
+rights of the community and of the individual. He might have
+snatched the sovereign power, but in doing it he would have lost his
+self-respect. In place, then, of glittering success, he obtained the
+quiet admiration of mankind and the loving gratitude of two nations.
+
+[Signature: William F. Peck.]
+
+
+
+
+CHARLOTTE CORDAY[6]
+
+         [Footnote 6: Copyright. 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By OLIVER OPTIC
+
+(1768-1793)
+
+[Illustration: A guillotine.]
+
+
+The despotism of Louis XIV. and the exhaustion of the finances by his
+wars and his reckless extravagance had reduced France to a very
+unhappy condition. His son, the Grand-Dauphin, died four years before
+his father, and his grandson, the Duke of Burgundy, a year later.
+Louis the Great was therefore succeeded by his great-grandson, Louis
+XV. During this reign the nation continued on the decline. He was
+followed by his grandson, Louis XVI., a better man than his immediate
+predecessor, but too weak to carry out the reforms necessary to
+restore the prosperity of the nation. Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu,
+and many other writers, as well as the influence of the American
+Revolution, had fostered democratic ideas among the people, for the
+government was reeking with abuses.
+
+The parliament had not assembled for three-quarters of a century;
+but representatives of the people met in 1789, in spite of the
+opposition of the king. The extreme of license followed the extreme
+of absolutism. The king opposed the Constituent Assembly, for this
+body changed its name several times, till the political conflict
+ended in the death by the guillotine of Louis XVI., and later by the
+execution of his queen, Marie Antoinette. For every two hundred and
+fifty of the gross population there was a member of the nobility who
+was exempted from the payment of any land tax, though this kind of
+property was almost exclusively in their possession, and from many
+other taxes and burdens, which all the more heavily weighed down
+the great body of the people. The latter had a long list of genuine
+grievances which the king and his advisers refused to remedy.
+
+The revolution became an accomplished fact in the capture and
+destruction of the Bastille, on July 14, 1789, which day is still
+celebrated as a national holiday in France. It had been for hundreds
+of years a prison for political offenders, and was regarded by the
+people as the principal emblem and instrument of tyranny. The
+population became as intemperate as their rulers had been, thousands
+perished by the guillotine, and the reign of terror was established.
+The National Convention proclaimed a republic; but this body was
+divided by conflicting opinions, and had not the power to inaugurate
+their ideal government. Blood flowed in rivers, and the reaction was
+infinitely more terrible than the tyranny which had produced it.
+
+The Convention was divided into at least four parties, though the
+lines which separated them were not very clearly defined. The
+Jacobins were the most prominent, and the most radical. It had its
+origin in the Jacobin Club, formed in Versailles, taking its name
+from a convent in which it met. This organization soon spread
+through its branches all over France, and its party was the most
+violent and blood-thirsty in the convention. Danton, Robespierre,
+Marat, Desmoulins, and other desperate leaders were of this faction.
+
+The Girondists were next in numbers and influence. They were the
+moderate republicans of the time, though at first they were inclined
+to accept the constitution, and favor a limited monarchy. Its name
+came from the earliest leaders of the party who were representatives
+from the department of the Gironde. Its members labored to check the
+violence and bloodshed of the times, and might be called the
+respectable party of the period. Unfortunately they were in the
+minority, and all the members of the party in the Convention who did
+not escape, were arrested, convicted, and guillotined.
+
+The Montagnards (mountaineers) or Montagne (Mountain) was the term
+applied to the Democrats holding the most extreme views, though its
+members were also Jacobins and Cordeliers. Among them were the most
+blood-thirsty, unreasonable, and intolerant men of the time, for
+Danton, Robespierre, Marat, St. Just, and others of that stamp,
+affiliated with them. They took their name from the fact that they
+were grouped together in the uppermost seats of the chamber of the
+Convention. The Cordeliers was hardly more than another name for a
+club of the same men, so called from the chapel of a Franciscan
+monastery where they held their meetings.
+
+[Illustration: Charlotte Corday and Marat.]
+
+Jean Paul Marat was one of the most prominent personages of the
+Revolution, whose infamy will continue to be perpetuated down to
+generations yet to come, with other of his red-handed associates. He
+was a Frenchman, though he spent considerable time in Holland and
+Great Britain, where he practised medicine, having studied the
+profession at Bordeaux. He made some reputation as a political
+writer, and in Edinburgh obtained a degree. It is believed that he
+was convicted for stealing, and sentenced to five years imprisonment
+at Oxford under several _aliases_. Perhaps he was sincere in his
+opinions, and he threw himself vigorously into the work of the
+Revolution in Paris, issuing inflammatory pamphlets, which he caused
+to be printed and circulated secretly. He established an infamous
+journal, attacking the king and all his supporters, and especially
+the Girondists, whose moderation disgusted him. His virulence caused
+him to be intensely hated, and twice he was compelled to flee to
+London, and once to hide in the sewers. In the latter he contracted
+a loathsome disease of the skin which soon began to eat away his
+life; and his sufferings from it intensified his zeal and his
+hatred.
+
+Marat was elected to the Convention as a delegate from Paris.
+Perhaps he was to a greater degree responsible for the September
+massacre than any other man. While he was dying of his malady he was
+urging on his fanatical measures, and declared that most of the
+members of the Convention, Mirabeau first, ought to be executed. His
+most virulent hatred was directed against the Girondists, whose
+execution he advocated with all the venom of his nature. Though he
+could write only when seated in a bath, he continued to hurl his
+invectives against them, impatient for the guillotine to do its gory
+work upon them.
+
+The avenger was at hand. Charlotte Corday d'Armont was the
+granddaughter of Corneille, the great tragic poet of France. Though
+of noble descent, she was born in a cottage, for her father was a
+country gentleman so poor that he could not support his family. His
+daughters worked in the fields like the peasants, till he was
+compelled to abandon them. Then they obtained admission to a convent
+in Caen, where they were received on account of their birth and
+their poverty. The library furnished Charlotte abundant reading
+matter, and she read works on philosophy, though she also rather
+inflated her imagination by the perusal of romances, which had some
+influence on her after life.
+
+When monasteries and convents were abolished, she was turned loose
+upon the world; but her aunt, as poor almost as her father, took the
+young woman, now nineteen years old, to her home in Caen. Charlotte
+had developed into a beautiful girl, rather tall, honest, and
+innocent. She had imbibed republican sentiments from her father in
+spite of his nobility, and Caen was the head-quarters of the
+Girondists. She was familiar with the details of the struggle
+between the Jacobins and the Girondists, and they inspired her with
+an intense feeling against the persecutors of her people, as she
+regarded the latter. The members of that party who had been driven
+from Paris instructed her. She was a woman; but if she had been a
+queen she had the nerve to rule a nation and fight its battles.
+
+A tremendous purpose took possession of her being. It was not
+prompted by the spirit of revenge. She was mistaken, but she
+believed that the removal of Marat was the remedy for the evils of
+the time; and this became the work of her life, upon which she
+entered, fully conscious that her path ended at an ignominious
+grave. She had an admirer in a young man by the name of Franquelin,
+and though she favored him she sacrificed her attachment to what she
+regarded as a lofty, even a sublime duty. She had the means to
+proceed to Paris and she went by the coach. She deceived her aunt,
+her father, and her sisters with the statement that she was going to
+England in search of remunerative employment. She went to a hotel in
+the great city which had been recommended to her in Caen.
+
+A friend had given her a letter of recommendation to Duperret, a
+Girondist deputy, by the aid of which she hoped to get into the
+presence of Marat. She had arranged a plan for the assassination of
+the brawling fanatic, and it was to take place at the celebration of
+the anniversary of the destruction of the Bastille, July 14th, on
+the Champ de Mars. She desired to do the deed as publicly as
+possible, not to make it sensational, but in order to produce the
+stronger impression upon the minds of the people. The postponement
+of the celebration, for the suppression of the rebellion among the
+Vendeans, prevented the execution of her first plan, and she then
+decided to strike down her victim in his seat at the "summit of the
+mountain," in the midst of the victim's accomplices. Then she
+learned that Marat was confined to his lodgings by his malady. She
+promptly determined to confront him in his own home.
+
+She wrote a note to him, professing to be a sufferer at the hands of
+the Girondists, asking for an appointment at his house. He made it,
+but was unable to keep it. She wrote another note, and then went to
+the house in the Rue de l'Ecole de Medecine, now a part of the
+Boulevard St. Germain. The woman with whom Marat lived refused to
+admit her, and she crowded up a short stairway. Her intended victim
+heard the altercation, and suspecting it was the person who had sent
+him two notes, he called out to Catherine Everard to admit her.
+Charlotte had visited the Palais Royal and purchased a knife, which
+was concealed in her bosom in readiness to do the deed.
+
+Marat, though at the height of his pernicious influence, lived in
+mean and squalid apartments, in a sort of pride of poverty as "the
+friend of the people." In spite of his disease, which compelled him
+to work in a bath, he was always busy. The room was littered with
+papers and pamphlets. He was only five feet in height, with a
+naturally disagreeable face, increased by his malady. At the very
+time his visitor entered his den, he was making out on a board
+before him a list of Girondists to be executed. She would not look
+at him, but she told him a story she had invented, and gave him the
+names of Girondist refugees at Caen; to which he replied as he wrote
+them down, that "they should have the guillotine before they were a
+week older."
+
+At these words, as though they had steeled her arm, she drew the
+knife from her bosom, and with superhuman power, plunged it to the
+hilt and to the heart of Marat. He called for help and then expired.
+Assistance came, and the house was thronged with National Guards and
+policemen. They were necessary to save the murderess from the fury
+of those who forced their way into the house. She was arrested, and
+conveyed in the same carriage in which she had come to the
+Conciergerie. All Paris groaned and howled.
+
+She had the form of a trial, and the guillotine quickly followed it.
+Her fortitude did not forsake her at any time, and she died as
+firmly as any martyr ever went to the stake. Her beauty and her
+heroism excited the sympathy of the crowd, but they could not save
+her. She was a mistaken heroine, but her courage and fortitude were
+sublime.
+
+[Signature: William S. Adams.]
+
+
+
+
+MADAME ROLAND[7]
+
+         [Footnote 7: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
+
+(1754-1793)
+
+[Illustration: Madame Roland.]
+
+
+France has produced many remarkable women; perhaps no other country
+can boast such an array of illustrious names; they shine from the
+pages of French history like fixed stars from the firmament. Among
+them, down the long vista of a hundred years, brilliant and
+beautiful, shines the name of Madame Roland, the spirit of the great
+French Revolution personified.
+
+Striking beauty, great genius, and wonderful courage in the hour of
+martyrdom, rendered this woman an unusual character in an unusual
+epoch. Surrounded by deceit, she was honest and fearless. In the
+midst of immorality and license, she was pure, and brave enough to
+resist temptation which came from without and from within, and she
+went to the scaffold with an untarnished name and soul.
+
+Manon Philipon, as Madame Roland was known in her childhood, was
+born in Paris in the year 1754. Her father was a worker in enamel,
+who thrived well enough in his art when he was content to toil at
+it, but a restless spirit of speculation led him into ventures which
+brought him neither profit nor renown.
+
+Manon's beauty was a direct inheritance from both father and mother.
+Gratien Philipon was a handsome man, and vain and frivolous as he
+was handsome; but his beautiful wife was serious-minded, and much
+the superior of her husband in intellect as well as morals. Of seven
+children born to this couple, only one lived--Manon, the subject of
+our sketch--who inherited the combined beauty of both parents, with
+the rectitude and high ideals of the mother. But there lies no
+explanation of inheritance from either father or mother to make us
+understand how the child of these common people became at nine years
+of age a student of Plutarch, Tasso, and Voltaire, and a philosopher
+at the age of eleven. It requires a deeper law than that of heredity
+to explain these things.
+
+At ten, Manon developed a strongly religious tendency, which was
+fostered, no doubt, by daily studying the "Lives of the Saints."
+While reading the accounts of martyrs who had died at the stake
+rather than resign their faith, the child often regretted that she
+had not lived in those "good old days," so happy a thing it seemed
+to her to die for one's principles. This privilege was granted her
+in after-years, strangely enough; and she proved as courageous in
+reality as she had in childhood imagined herself capable of being
+under similar circumstances.
+
+Manon's religious feelings were culminated by a request made to her
+mother, in a paroxysm of tears, that she might be placed in a
+convent to prepare herself for her first communion; accordingly, she
+was taken to the Convent of the "Sisters of the Congregation" in
+May, 1765, when she was eleven years old. Side by side with this
+nunnery, where the precocious child passed one of the happiest
+epochs of her life, stood the prison which was to immure her in
+later years. Should such a circumstance and situation be unfolded in
+the pages of fiction, we would call it strained and unnatural.
+
+During the year Manon passed in the convent, she made the
+acquaintance of two sisters, Henrietta and Sophie Cannet, who were
+allied to the nobility; and she afterward attributed her facility in
+writing to the correspondence with the younger of these sisters,
+which continued without interruption over more than a decade of
+years. In her memoirs, written under the shadow of the guillotine,
+she says, "In the gloom of a prison, in the midst of political
+storms, how shall I recall to my mind, and how describe, the
+rapture, the tranquillity I enjoyed at that period; but when I
+review the events of my life, I find it difficult to assign to
+circumstances that variety and that plenitude of affection which
+have so strongly marked every point of its duration, and left me so
+clear a remembrance of every place at which I have been."
+
+After she left the convent, she found her passion for reading
+unabated, and as her father's library was limited, she was obliged
+to borrow and hire books; from these she made copious extracts and
+abstracts which formed her valuable habit of reflection upon what
+she had read.
+
+Her first feelings of contempt and bitterness toward the aristocrats
+were roused by the air of condescension which the Cannets exhibited
+to her in her occasional visits to Sophie. They were stupid and
+arrogant people, but they made her realize that the daughter of an
+artisan was not on equal footing with people allied to the nobility,
+albeit she was a prodigy of beauty, learning, and talent, and they
+the dullest of beings.
+
+"I endeavored," she says, "to think with hope that everything was
+right, but my pride told me things were ordered better in a
+republic." So, as early as at the age of fourteen, we find this
+remarkable being philosophizing upon republics, and taking part in
+mind against the evils and injustice fostered by monarchies.
+
+Madame Roland wandered from prescribed creeds, and became a liberal
+in her religious ideas. She has been called an Atheist, but every
+line she writes, and her life of self-sacrifice, disprove this
+assertion. Her "one prayer," to which she says she confined herself,
+is, to my mind, sublime with beautiful and practical religion.
+
+"O Thou who hast placed me on the earth, enable me to fulfil my
+destination in the manner most conformable to the Divine will, and
+most beneficial to my fellow-creatures."
+
+I can imagine no more perfect religious faith, no more complete
+submission to, and acknowledgment of, a Supreme Power than this
+prayer contains. It strikes me as far more devout and respectful
+than the prayers of many people who endeavor to dictate to God and
+direct Him what to do and what not to do, what to bestow and what to
+withhold.
+
+She writes of her religious agitations with great reluctance to
+Sophie Cannet, fearful of disturbing the serenity of her friend's
+convictions; but she continued to conform to her mother's religious
+ideas during that good woman's life, and even afterward she kept up
+the forms of Catholicism for the sake of a valued family servant who
+was devoted to her.
+
+This delicate consideration of the feelings of others has been
+mistaken by some bigoted minds for deceit or vacillation on the part
+of Madame Roland; as if such a being were capable of either.
+
+We owe all our knowledge of her early private life to the voluminous
+correspondence between her and Sophie Cannet; to this friend she
+wrote those long, journal-like letters, in which one young girl
+often pours out the inmost secrets of her heart and soul to another;
+but, unlike the letters of the ordinary girl, Manon's contained
+criticisms of the books she had read, and discussions of
+philosophical subjects, which bear evidence to her wonderful
+precocity of thought and feeling in her "teens."
+
+Originality, unselfishness, genius of the rarest order, are all
+displayed in these letters; already had her mind grasped some great
+truths which it requires the average philosopher half a century to
+discover, when at seventeen, she says, "Man is the epitome of the
+universe. The revolutions of the world without are an image of those
+which take place in his own soul."
+
+Upon the news of the mortal illness of Louis XV., she writes to
+Sophie this strongly humanitarian passage: "Although the obscurity
+of my birth, name, and position seem to preclude me from taking any
+interest in the government, yet the common weal touches me in spite
+of it. My country is something to me, and the love I bear it is
+unquestionable. How could it be otherwise when nothing in the world
+is indifferent to me? A love of humanity unites me to everything
+that breathes. A Caribbean interests me; the fate of a Kaffir goes
+to my heart. Alexander wished for more worlds to conquer. I could
+wish for more to love."
+
+In spite of her philosophy, her seriousness, and her learning,
+however, Manon Philipon was a girl, and a charming one; and we learn
+in her letters to Sophie how she was pestered with lovers of low and
+high degree, during her long maidenhood. I might better say with
+proposals for her hand, since, as we know, French custom does not
+permit the "love-making" which American girls consider their natural
+prerogative.
+
+Manon was so beautiful, brilliant, and magnetic, that when she went
+out to promenade with her father, she was greeted with admiring
+glances and remarks; and from the fruit vender of whom she made
+occasional purchases, and the butcher who served the family with
+joints, to dancing and drawing masters, up along the line to
+merchants, professional, and literary men, she seemed to fascinate
+and attract with no effort on her own part.
+
+Each one in turn asked for her hand and was rejected; and a host of
+others followed, to meet a similar fate, until her father threatened
+to marry her to the first stranger who crossed his portal, whether
+either one wished it or no. She says in her memoirs, "The
+respectable character of my mother, the appearance of some fortune,
+and my being an only child, made the project of matrimony a tempting
+one to a number of persons who were strangers to me. The greater
+part, finding it difficult to obtain an introduction, adopted the
+expedient of writing to my father. These letters were always shown
+to me. I wrote the answers, which my father faithfully copied. I was
+much amused at acting the part of my own father, and dismissed my
+suitors with dignity, leaving no room for resentment or hope. Here
+began to break out those dissensions with my father which lasted
+ever after. He loved and respected commerce, I despised it; and he
+was much concerned at my rejection of suitors who possessed any
+fortune."
+
+After the death of Madame Philipon, which occurred in her daughter's
+twenty-first year, Manon's life at home became almost unbearable.
+Her extreme grief impaired her health, and anxiety and mortification
+were added by the excesses and frivolous extravagances into which
+her father plunged. He formed associations with people of bad
+character, and took to gambling. Manon strove to make herself an
+agreeable companion, and to entertain him at home, but the attempt
+was futile. She filled her lonely hours with study, and with writing
+letters to Sophie. One day a tall, thin gentleman, bald and yellow,
+past forty, and looking older, presented a letter of introduction
+from Miss Cannet.
+
+It was M. Roland, an austere philosopher, of an ancient family, to
+whom Sophie had often referred. Manon admired his intellect and his
+respectability; and when, after some two or three years, he made an
+offer of marriage, she was ready to accept; but M. Philipon bluntly
+and insolently refused his consent, through a strong personal
+dislike which he had conceived for the severe moralist and
+philosopher.
+
+Manon could not marry against her father's wishes, but she could
+leave the home now so distasteful to her. She had saved only a small
+sum from her mother's fortune, amounting to about one hundred
+dollars per year. With this, she retired to the Convent of the
+Congregation, and shut herself up with her books, and received only
+her old friends.
+
+M. Roland, for whose sake she had taken so decisive a step, was far
+from an ardent lover in his conduct at this juncture. He wrote her
+affectionately, but he made no reference to his proposal of marriage
+until six months had passed. Then he came to Paris, had an interview
+through iron gratings, and expressed himself determined to make her
+his wife. Since she had left her father's roof, she was at liberty
+to accept his somewhat tardy proposal, and she emerged from the
+convent to become Madame Roland.
+
+We have seen that M. Roland was not an ardent lover, and it is
+readily understood that this beautiful, intense girl, in the very
+prime of young womanhood, was not in love with him. She felt only
+esteem for his virtues, and admiration for his intellect. But she
+was twenty-five years old, and virtually homeless; of all the score
+of men who had sought her hand in marriage, no one had ever stirred
+her heart, and she married, believing, no doubt, that this cold
+regard and high admiration which the character of M. Roland
+elicited, was all that she could feel for any man.
+
+It was not until the thunders of the Revolution shook the world,
+that her heart awoke to real passion; and even then, in a situation
+where hundreds of women who have professed greater religious fervor,
+have fallen, she conquered herself, and virtually died to protect
+her husband's life.
+
+During the first year of their marriage, the Rolands lived in Paris.
+Manon had imagined a happy association with her friends, the
+Cannets; but her husband was morbidly jealous of these friends, and
+extracted a promise from her that she would see them as little as
+possible. She became his amanuensis and secretary, and scarcely ever
+left his side.
+
+During the next ten years we find her passing the greater part of
+her time in the Clos de la Platiere, an ancient and humble
+country-seat belonging to the Roland family. Here, with her taxing
+domestic duties, the exactions of her husband, the care of her child
+Eudora, the tyrannies of her aged mother-in-law, this wonderful
+woman had little opportunity for the exercise of her talents.
+
+It seems strange to think of this beautiful martyr, whose name is a
+synonym for all that is grand and heroic, passing the best years of
+her womanhood in preparing dishes for the appetite of a dyspeptic
+husband, in looking after house-linen, and arranging lessons for a
+child. Matilda Blind says "This affects one with something of the
+ludicrous disproportion of making use of the fires of Etna to fry
+one's eggs by."
+
+Yet Madame Roland performed these and less agreeable duties as
+cheerfully and as perfectly as she had performed her chosen tasks in
+the convent years before. Women doctors were not known in those
+days, but the genius of Madame Roland embraced a knowledge of
+medicine with other things; and she often went three leagues to
+relieve a sick peasant, and was ever ready to sacrifice herself for
+the good of others.
+
+There was very little happiness for her in the companionship of her
+husband. He was twenty-two years her senior, and possessed an
+imperious temper and an exacting nature. But the most ardent wife
+could not have better performed her duty to the most lovable of
+husbands.
+
+Naturally democratic in her feelings and sympathies, Madame Roland
+took the keenest interest in the progress of the Revolution; from
+her quiet retreat she studied its leading members, and when, in
+1791, her husband was chosen deputy to the Constituent Assembly, she
+accompanied him to Paris, and their apartments became the rendezvous
+for such men as Brissot, Buzot, Danton, Robespierre, Petion, and
+many more, who met to confer with one another and to exchange ideas
+and suggestions. Madame Roland sat apart with her embroidery and
+listened. Of these meetings she speaks thus in her "Memoirs": "Good
+ideas were started and excellent principles maintained; but there
+was no path marked out, no determinate point toward which each
+person should direct his views. Sometimes for very vexation, I could
+have boxed the ears of these philosophers."
+
+Had not her sex precluded this silent spirit of the Girondists from
+taking part in these counsels, if, instead of acting second hand
+through her husband, she could have taken the lead, as her genius,
+perception, honesty, and courage entitled her to do, who knows that
+she might not have averted the disasters which befell the party
+through its dissensions.
+
+In March, 1792, Roland was elected minister of the interior; and
+Madame Roland presided over the establishment that had been
+sumptuously fitted up for Madame Necker. Roland became the idol of
+the patriotic party, and was enchanted with his excellent position.
+He urged upon King Louis XVI., in whom he reposed great faith, the
+necessity of a decree against the priesthood, and the establishment
+of a camp in the suburbs of Paris. Louis demurred, Roland insisted
+in the famous letter written by his wife, and placed in the king's
+hands June 11th. This letter became immensely popular. The Assembly
+ordered it to be printed and copies sent to all departments,
+together with expressions of national regret at the discharge of
+Roland and his friends, which the letter caused. But they were
+recalled to office after the dreadful August 10th.
+
+Twice a week Madame Roland gave a dinner to fifteen of her husband's
+colleagues, with whom he wished to converse. No other lady was
+present. The Girondists were at the apex of society, and Madame
+Roland was the life and impetus of the party. She endeavored to
+infuse its members with her hatred of false pride and old
+prejudices, and with her desire to establish a liberal democracy.
+Always enthusiastic, and vexed with the lack of unity and direct
+purpose in the Assembly, she was over-zealous in some of her
+suggestions.
+
+Among the brilliant men whom she entertained at these dinners, was
+one, young, handsome, elegant, and refined, whose many manly
+qualities woke in her heart that long-delayed passion which a nature
+so ardent must sometime feel. This man was Buzot; and he was as
+irresistibly drawn to this beautiful, brilliant woman as the magnet
+to the steel.
+
+Madame Roland was at this time thirty-eight years old; her brilliant
+color and her open expression made her look much younger, and her
+tall, finely developed form, her splendid eyes and engaging smile,
+charmed and attracted all who came near her. But though domestic
+life and morality were held at the lowest possible value in those
+chaotic days, and each man made a law for himself, Madame Roland
+never wavered in her loyalty and devotion to the man whose name she
+bore. Only through her remarkable letters written to Buzot from her
+prison cell, and never made public till 1863, does the glory and
+intensity of her hopeless passion display itself.
+
+From the very first, Madame Roland had distrusted Danton. It was not
+long before her intuitions proved correct, for Danton soon showed
+his jealousy and dislike of the minister, whom he found too honest
+to tamper with. He feared, too, the penetration, frankness, and
+genius of Roland's wife. Men who saw the insidious, selfish
+qualities of Danton, began to cultivate and conciliate him out of
+fear of his enmity.
+
+Robespierre, whom Madame Roland had at first believed in as an
+honest friend to liberty, became an ally of Danton and Marat, and
+Roland soon realized that it was not the monarchists he had to
+contend against, but the new party headed by these dissenting
+Girondists, who were savage with a thirst for human blood.
+
+The Rolands were accused of trying to establish an aristocracy of
+talent on the ruins of a monarchical aristocracy; their semi-weekly
+dinners were represented as sumptuous feasts where, like a new
+Circe, Madame Roland strove to corrupt the unfortunates who partook
+of her banquets.
+
+She was called before the Convention December 7th, to listen to the
+charges against her; her eloquence won the admiration of even her
+enemies. But her safety was in danger, and she was obliged to sleep
+with a pistol under her pillow for fear of the outrages of
+desperadoes who lurked about her house.
+
+The strife between the two parties grew more bitter, and the
+downfall of Roland had been determined upon by his savage opponents,
+once his fawning friends and colleagues. An attempt was made to
+arrest Roland by six armed men, deputies of the Insurrectionists. He
+replied that he did not recognize their authority, and refused to
+follow them. Madame Roland at once set off for the Tuileries, where
+the Insurrectionists, more cruel and blood-thirsty than the deposed
+Monarchists, were in session. At the door the sentinels forbade her
+to enter. Obliged to return home without having been enabled to
+address the Convention, as she hoped to do, she found that her
+husband had taken refuge in the house of a friend.
+
+She sought him out, embraced him, and returned once more to the
+Tuileries in another vain hope of arousing their former friends to
+resolute action. But she was obliged to return to her apartment in
+the evening, without having accomplished anything. Late that night
+she was torn from her child and her home, and cast into the Prison
+of the Abbaye, from which she was set at liberty a month later, and
+wild with happiness, allowed to reach her own door; but as she
+attempted to enter she was again seized and conveyed to the Prison
+of Sainte Pelagie. The respite had only been given in malice to
+render her second incarceration more bitter.
+
+Under the same roof were murderers and women of the town; and in the
+morning, when the cell-doors were opened, the scum of the earth, as
+one authority tells us, collected in the corridor. On each side of
+this corridor (the only place where the prisoners could take
+exercise) were small cells, and one of these, separated only by thin
+walls from the most depraved beings, whose vile language was
+constantly audible to her ears, this refined and elegant woman was
+forced to occupy. She suffered acutely from this proximity to
+depravity and vulgarity at first; but ere long she transformed the
+vicinity in which her cell was situated "from an inferno to an oasis
+of peace." When she walked in the corridor, where at first she was
+pointed at, abused and reviled, she was now surrounded by wretched
+beings who clung to her skirts and regarded her as a divinity. Her
+sweet voice soothed brawls, her words of courage inspired the most
+hopeless. Everybody loved her, everybody desired her acquittal.
+
+Meantime she was writing her famous "Memoirs," and the touching
+letters to her husband, her child, and to Buzot. After an
+imprisonment of more than six months, she was finally called before
+the judge and the prosecution, and accused of being the wife of
+Roland, the conspirator, the friend of his accomplices. Twenty-one
+Girondists had already been executed, and she could not hope to
+escape. She was condemned to death as guilty of traitorous relations
+with conspirators. She heard the sentence proudly, and replied, "You
+consider me worthy to share the fate of the great men whom you have
+assassinated. I shall try to carry to the scaffold the courage they
+have shown."
+
+Robespierre signed her death-warrant. He had been her friend, guest,
+and correspondent. She had helped him when he was unknown, defended
+him when he was in need of a defender. But he sent her to the
+scaffold; and on November 9, 1793, the tumbril came to convey her to
+the guillotine. It had taken many others on that same day; and now
+her only companion on that fatal ride was a trembling old man named
+La Marche. He wept bitterly, but Madame Roland cheered him with
+words of courage and strength.
+
+When they arrived at the Place de la Concorde, she begged the
+executioner to permit the "etiquette of the scaffold" to be waived,
+and to allow La Marche to die first, that the sight of her death
+might not accentuate his fear and misery. So to the last moment of
+her life she was true to her religion of thoughtfulness for others.
+
+Beautiful, self-possessed, and calm, she stood upon the scaffold in
+the pride of her womanhood, and spoke those last immortal words as
+she lifted her eyes to the statue of Liberty, "O Liberty, how many
+crimes are committed in thy name."
+
+Then the axe fell, and the assassins of the Revolution had added
+another victim to their list. Seven days after this event, M. Roland
+committed suicide by stabbing himself through the heart.
+
+[Signature: Ella Wheeler Wilcox.]
+
+
+
+
+MARIE ANTOINETTE
+
+By Mrs. OCTAVIUS FREIRE OWEN
+
+(1755-1793)
+
+[Illustration: Marie Antoinette.]
+
+
+Maria Theresa, the Empress of Austria, was not highly educated; and
+she was incapable of directing the studies of her children, although
+by precept and example she laid the foundation of characters, all of
+which became more or less remarkable. Marie Antoinette, her youngest
+child, was perhaps the most neglected. She once innocently caused
+the dismissal of her governess, through a confession that all the
+letters and drawings shown to her mother, in proof of her
+improvement, had been previously traced with a pencil. At fifteen
+her knowledge of Italian, studied under Metastasio, was the only
+branch of her education which had been fairly attended to, if we
+except considerable conversance with the "Lives of the Saints" and
+other legendary lore, the favorite fictions of monastic compilers.
+Nature had, nevertheless, done much for the young archduchess; she
+possessed great facility for learning, and was not slow in taking
+advantage of opportunities for improvement when they were afforded.
+In person she was most attractive. "Beaming with freshness," says
+Madame Campan, "she appeared to all eyes more than beautiful. Her
+walk partook at once of the noble character of the princesses of her
+house and of the graces of the French; her eyes were mild, her smile
+lovely. It was impossible to refrain from admiring her aerial
+deportment; her smile was sufficient to win the heart; and in this
+enchanting being, in whom the splendor of French gayety shone forth,
+an indescribable but august serenity--perhaps, also, the somewhat
+proud position of her head and shoulders--betrayed the daughter of
+the Caesars." Such, according to her affectionate chronicler,
+appeared Marie Antoinette, when her nuptials were celebrated at
+Versailles with the Dauphin of France.
+
+Superstitious minds discovered fatal omens from the earliest years
+of the hapless dauphiness. She had begun ill by first drawing breath
+upon the very day of the earthquake of Lisbon; this made a great
+impression on the mother, and later upon the child also. Another
+incident was not less discouraging: the empress had "protected a
+person named Gassner," who fancied himself inspired, and affected to
+predict events. "Tell me," she said to him one day, "whether my
+Antoinette will be happy?" At first Gassner turned pale and remained
+silent, but, urged by the empress, and dreading to distress her by
+his own fancies, he said, equivocally, "Madame, there are crosses
+for all shoulders." Goethe notices that a pavilion erected to
+receive Marie Antoinette and her suite in the neighborhood of
+Strasburg was lined with tapestry depicting the story of Jason, "the
+most fatal union" on record; and a few days later, when the young
+queen arrived from Versailles to witness the rejoicings of the
+people upon her marriage, she was compelled to fly, terrified, from
+a scene remarkable not for festivity and happiness, but for the
+variety and horror of its accidents. These circumstances threw a
+gloom over the prospective triumphs of the impressionable bride; but
+her nature and age were alike favorable to vivacity, and she shook
+off the morbid influence.
+
+Something of her mother's wise advice to her as to the course she
+should follow in her new position has been preserved in the
+following letter:
+
+"MY DEAR DAUGHTER:
+
+"... Do not take any recommendations; listen to no one, if you would
+be at peace. Have no curiosity,--this is a fault which I fear
+greatly for you; avoid all familiarity with your inferiors. Ask of
+Monsieur and Madame de Noailles, and even exact of them, under all
+circumstances, advice as to what, as a foreigner and being desirous
+of pleasing the nation, you should do, and that they should tell you
+frankly if there be anything in your bearing, discourse, or any
+point which you should correct. Reply amiably to every one, and with
+grace and dignity; you can if you will. You must learn to refuse....
+After Strasburg you must accept nothing without taking counsel of
+Monsieur and Madame de Noailles; and you should refer to them every
+one who would speak to you of his personal affairs, saying frankly
+that being a stranger yourself, you cannot undertake to recommend
+any one to the king. If you wish you may add, in order to make your
+reply more emphatic, 'The empress, my mother, has expressly
+forbidden me to undertake any recommendations.' Do not be ashamed to
+ask advice of any one, and do nothing on your own responsibility....
+In the king you will find a tender father who will also be your
+friend if you deserve it. Put entire confidence in him; you will run
+no risk. Love him, obey him, seek to divine his thoughts; you cannot
+do enough on this moment when I am losing you.... Concerning the
+dauphin I shall say nothing; you know my delicacy on this point. A
+wife should be submissive in everything to her husband, and should
+have no thought but to please him and do his will.... The only true
+happiness in this world lies in a happy marriage; I know whereof I
+speak. Everything depends on the wife if she be yielding, sweet, and
+amusing.... I counsel you, my dear daughter, to reread this letter
+on the twenty-first of every month. I beg you to be true to me on
+this point. My only fear for you is negligence in your prayers and
+studies; and lukewarmness succeeds negligence. Fight against it, for
+it is more dangerous than a more reprehensible, even wicked state;
+one can conquer that more easily. Love your family; be affectionate
+to them--to your aunts as well as to your brothers-in-law and
+sisters-in-law. Suffer no evil-speaking; you must either silence the
+persons, or escape it by withdrawing from them. If you value your
+peace of mind, you must from the start avoid this pitfall, which I
+greatly fear for you knowing your curiosity....
+
+  "Your mother,
+                         "MARIA-THERESA."
+
+The grand annoyance Marie Antoinette experienced upon her entrance
+into the French Court, was the necessity of observing a system of
+etiquette to which she had been unaccustomed, and soon pronounced,
+with girlish vehemence, insupportable. Barriere copies a ridiculous
+anecdote in illustration of this from the manuscript fragments of
+Madame Campan: "Madame de Noailles" (this was the first lady of
+honor to the dauphiness) "abounded in virtues; I cannot pretend to
+deny it. Her piety, charity, and irreproachable morals rendered her
+worthy of praise, but etiquette was to her a sort of atmosphere; at
+the slightest derangement of the consecrated order, one would have
+thought she would have been stifled, and that life would forsake her
+frame. One day I unintentionally threw this poor lady into a
+terrible agony. The queen was receiving I know not whom--some
+persons just presented, I believe; the lady of honor, the queen's
+tire-woman, and the ladies of the bed-chamber were behind the queen.
+I was near the throne with the two women on duty. All was right; at
+least, I thought so. Suddenly I perceived the eyes of Madame de
+Noailles fixed on mine. She made a sign with her head, and then
+raised her eyebrows to the top of her forehead, lowered them, raised
+them again, then began to make little signs with her hand. From all
+this pantomime, I could easily perceive that something was not as it
+should be; as I looked about on all sides to find out what it was,
+the agitation of the countess kept increasing. The queen, who
+perceived all this, looked at me with a smile. I found means to
+approach her Majesty, who said to me in a whisper: '_Let down your
+lappets, or the countess will expire._' All this bustle arose from
+two unlucky pins, which fastened up my lappets, while the etiquette
+of costume said '_Lappets hanging down_.'"
+
+To the Countess de Noailles Marie Antoinette speedily gave the name
+of Madame l'Etiquette; this pleasantry the object of it could
+pardon, not so the French nation. The avowed dislike to ceremony
+manifested by the lively little dauphiness, her desire to substitute
+the simple manners of her native Vienna for the stately formality of
+Versailles, displeased more than her genuine condescension and
+affability attracted. Early also in her married life, to beguile the
+heavy tedium of their evenings, she instituted a variety of childish
+games which became talked of and condemned; she liked theatrical
+representations, and persuaded her two young brothers-in-law, with
+the princesses, to join her in performing plays, and though they
+were kept secret for a time, she suffered for her innocent
+contrivances in public opinion. It must be remembered that Marie
+Antoinette had no sincere friends upon her arrival in France, except
+the Duc de Choiseul and his party, and his disgrace prevented her
+deriving much benefit from the man who had first negotiated her
+marriage. The house of Austria was looked upon with dislike and
+doubt; nor were these, even in the case of the young dauphin's aunt,
+Madame Adelaide, made a matter of concealment. Thus, at her entrance
+upon public life, Antoinette was met with cynicism and prejudice,
+and unfortunately her own conduct rather increased than quieted the
+insidious voice--the "_bruit sourd_"--of both.
+
+Louis XV. had manifested from the first great pleasure in the
+society of his grandson's bride. After dining in his apartment at
+the Tuileries, upon her arrival at Paris, she was obliged to
+acknowledge the shouts of the multitude, which filled the garden
+below, by presenting herself on the balcony. The Governor of Paris
+had told her politely at the time, that "these were so many lovers."
+Little did she think that at the very moment a strong party around
+her was planning her divorce, under the supposition that the
+dauphin's coldness to his bride proceeded from dislike. Louis was a
+timid, though rough, youth at the time, and for a considerable
+period treated the attractions which the courtiers so highly
+extolled, with churlish indifference. The French king, indeed, did
+his best to promote a better understanding, and when the reserve of
+the dauphin once thawed, the latter became tenderly attached to her,
+and greatly improved by her influence and society.
+
+An interesting trait of this youthful pair is told, as occurring at
+the moment when they might have been excused for entertaining other
+and more selfish thoughts. They were expecting the intelligence of
+the death of Louis XV. It had been agreed, as the disorder was one
+frightfully contagious, that the court should depart immediately
+upon learning it could be of no further assistance, and that a
+lighted taper, placed in the window of the dying monarch's chamber,
+should form a signal for the cavalcade to prepare for the journey.
+The taper was extinguished; a tumult of voices and advancing feet
+were heard in the outer apartment. "It was the crowd of courtiers
+deserting the dead sovereign's ante-chamber, to come and bow to the
+new power of Louis XVI." With a spontaneous impulse the dauphin and
+his bride threw themselves upon their knees, and shedding a torrent
+of tears, exclaimed, "O God! guide us, protect us; we are too young
+to govern." Thus the Countess de Noailles found them as she entered,
+the first to salute Marie Antoinette as Queen of France.
+
+[Illustration: Marie Antoinette.]
+
+For some time the young queen's liking for children was ungratified by
+the possession of any of her own, and this gave rise to an amusing
+attempt to adopt one belonging to others. One day, when she was
+driving near Luciennes, a little peasant boy fell under the horses'
+feet, and might have been killed. The queen took him to Versailles,
+appointed him a nurse, and installed him in the royal apartments,
+constantly seating him in her lap at breakfast and dinner. This child
+afterward grew up a most sanguinary revolutionist! It was nine years
+before Marie Antoinette had the blessing of any offspring; four
+children were after that interval, born to her, two of whom died in
+their infancy, and two survived to share their parent's subsequent
+imprisonment. The sad history of her son's fate, a promising and
+attractive boy, is well known.
+
+We have seen the Austrian princess was no favorite with her
+husband's nation. After a time accusations as unjust as serious
+assailed her, and in the horrors of the succeeding revolution the
+popular feeling evinced itself in a hundred frightful ways. Louis
+XVI., a mild prince, averse to violence or bloodshed, was unfit to
+stem the tide of opposition; had he possessed the energy of his
+queen, the Reign of Terror had perhaps never existed. Throughout her
+misfortunes, in every scene of flight, of opprobrium, and
+desolation, her magnanimity and courage won, even from the ruffians
+around, occasional expressions of sympathy. A harrowing and
+melancholy history is hers, and one which has been often vividly
+narrated; its details, also, are sufficiently recent to be still
+fresh within the recollection of many. For these reasons, and
+further because it seems to us a repellent, if not a mischievous,
+act to amplify such records before advancing age shall have invested
+them to the mind with deeper significance, we gladly pass over the
+picture suggested by this dark historical page, and, resuming the
+narrative where Madame de Campan drops it, content ourselves with a
+description of the last scene in the terrible drama.
+
+When this devoted woman left her royal mistress in the miserable
+cell at the Convent of the Feuillans, she never again saw her.
+Imprisonment, and the intense grief she experienced, more for others
+than for herself, completely transformed the once beautiful queen;
+her hair was prematurely silvered, like that of Mary Stuart, her
+figure bowed, her voice low and tremulous. Then came the separation
+from the king. Once more only did her eyes again behold him, and
+after the parting between the dethroned monarch and his adoring
+family, he might indeed have been able to say, "The bitterness of
+death was passed." However weak at intervals, the unhappy Louis met
+his death heroically. The sufferings of his wife at the time when
+the guns boomed out the fearful catastrophe, may be supposed to have
+been as great as the human frame has power to endure. Shortly after,
+she was separated from her children and conveyed to the prison of
+the Conciergerie, a damp and loathsome place, whence she was
+summoned one morning in October to receive a sentence for which it
+is probable she ardently longed. Let us look at her through the bars
+of her prison upon her return thither after it was pronounced.
+
+It is four o'clock in the morning. The widowed Queen of France
+stands calm and resigned in her cell, listening with a melancholy
+smile to the tumult of the mob outside. A faint illumination
+announces the approach of day; it is the last she has to live!
+Seating herself at a table she writes, with hurried hand, a last
+letter of ardent tenderness to the sister of her husband, the pious
+Madame Elizabeth, and to her children; and now she passionately
+presses the insensible paper to her lips, as the sole remaining link
+between those dear ones and herself. She stops, sighs, and throws
+herself upon her miserable pallet. What! in such an hour as this can
+the queen sleep? Even so!
+
+And now look up, daughter of the Caesars! Thou art waked from dreams
+of hope and light, from the imaged embrace of thy beloved Louis, thy
+tender infants, by a kind voice, choked by tears. Arise! emancipated
+one, thy prison doors are open. Freedom, freedom is at hand!
+
+Immediately in front of the palace of the Tuileries--scene of the
+short months of her wedded happiness--there rises a dark, ominous
+mass. Around is a sea of human faces; above, the cold frown of a
+winter's sky. With a firm step the victim ascends the stairs of the
+scaffold, her white garments wave in the chill breeze, a black ribbon
+by which her cap is confined beats to and fro against her pale cheeks.
+You may see that she is unmindful of her executioners--she glances,
+nay, almost smiles, at the sharp edge of the guillotine, and then
+turning her eyes toward the Temple, utters, in a few agitated words,
+her last earthly farewell to Louis and her children. There is a
+hush--a stillness of the grave--for the very headsman trembles as the
+horrible blade falls--anon, a moment's delay. And now, look! No,
+rather veil your eyes from the dreadful sight; close your ears to that
+fiendish shout--_Vive la Republique!_ It is over! the sacrifice is
+accomplished! the weary spirit is at rest!
+
+Let us dwell upon this last mournful pageant only sufficiently far
+as to imitate the virtues, and emulate the firmness and resignation
+with which she met her doom. Nothing is permitted without a meaning,
+all is for either warning or example; and while breathing a prayer
+that Heaven may avert a recurrence of such outrages, let us remember
+that moral indecision, the undue love of pleasure, and an aimless,
+profitless mode of life, as surely, and not less fatally, may raise
+the surging tide of events no human skill can quell, as the most
+selfish abandonment to uncontrolled desires.
+
+
+
+
+ANDREAS HOFER
+
+(1767-1810)
+
+
+Andreas Hofer, a native of the village of St. Leonard, in the valley
+of Passeyr, was born on November 22, 1767. During the greater part
+of his life he resided peaceably in his own neighborhood, where he
+kept an inn, and increased his profits by dealing in wine, corn, and
+cattle. About his neck he wore at all times a small crucifix and a
+medal of St. George. He never held any rank in the Austrian army;
+but he had formed a secret connection with the Archduke John, when
+that prince had passed a few weeks in the Tyrol making scientific
+researches. In November, 1805, Hofer was appointed deputy from his
+native valley at the conference of Brunnecken, and again at a second
+conference, held at Vienna, in January, 1809.
+
+[Illustration: Andreas Hofer.]
+
+The Tyrol had for many years been an appendage of the Austrian
+states, and the inhabitants had become devoted to that government;
+so that when, by the treaty of Presburg, the province was
+transferred to the rule of the King of Bavaria, then the ally of
+Napoleon I., the peasants were greatly irritated, and their
+discontent was further provoked by the large and frequent exactions
+which the continual wars obliged the new government to levy on the
+Tyrolese. The consequence was, that when their own neighborhood
+became the theatre of military operations between Austria and
+France, in the spring of 1809, a general insurrection broke out in
+the Tyrol. His resolution of character, natural eloquence, and
+private influence as a wealthy citizen, joined to a figure of great
+stature and strength, pointed out Andreas Hofer to his countrymen as
+the leader of this revolt; and with him were united Spechbacher,
+Joseph Haspinger, and Martin Teimer, whose names have all become
+historical. A perfect understanding was maintained between the
+insurgents and their late masters, and the signal of the
+insurrection was given by the Archduke John in a proclamation from
+his head-quarters at Klagenfurth. An Austrian army of 10,000 men,
+commanded by the Marquis Castellar, was directed to enter the Tyrol
+and support the insurrection, which broke out in every quarter on
+the night of April 8, 1809. The Austrian general himself crossed the
+frontier at daybreak on the 9th. On their side the Bavarians marched
+an army of 25,000 men into the province to quell the revolt. Hofer
+and his band of armed peasantry fell upon the Bavarians while
+entangled in the narrow glens, and on April 10th defeated Besson and
+Lemoine at the Sterzinger Moos. The next day a troop of peasants
+under Teimer took possession of Innsbrueck. On the 12th Besson
+surrendered with his division of 3,000 men. In a single week all the
+fortresses were recovered, nearly 10,000 troops of the enemy were
+destroyed, and the whole province was redeemed.
+
+Incensed by this interruption of his plans, Napoleon despatched
+three armies almost simultaneously to assail the province at three
+different points. One of these forces was under the command of
+Marshal Lefebvre, who, on May 12th, defeated the united army of the
+Austrian soldiers, under Castellar, and the Tyrolese peasantry,
+under Haspinger and Spechbacher, at Feuer Singer. The troops made a
+bad use of their victory, slaughtering the inhabitants of the
+villages on their route, without distinction of age or sex. The
+Bavarian and French officers encouraged and took part in the
+excesses of the soldiers; while the insurgents, far from
+retaliating, refrained from every species of license, and nursed
+their wounded prisoners with the same care as their own friends.
+Hofer himself was not always present in action, his talent
+consisting rather in stimulating his countrymen than in actual
+fighting; but at the battle of Innsbrueck (May 28, 1809), he led the
+Tyrolese, exhibited both skill and daring, and defeated the
+Bavarians with a loss of 4,000 men. The whole of the Tyrol was
+delivered a second time. But after the battle of Wagram (July 6th),
+and the armistice of Znaim which immediately followed, the Austrian
+army was obliged to evacuate the Tyrol, leaving the helpless
+insurgents to the mercy of an exasperated enemy. Marshal Lefebvre
+now invaded the province a second time, and entered it by the road
+from Salzburg, with an army of 21,000 troops, while Beaumont, having
+crossed the ridge of Schnartz with a force 10,000 strong, threatened
+Innsbrueck from the north. On July 30th Innsbrueck submitted. A series
+of desperate contests followed along the line of the Brenner, mostly
+with doubtful success, but in one the marshal was defeated, when
+twenty-five pieces of artillery and a quantity of ammunition fell
+into the hands of the Tyrolese. Again, on August 12th, Marshal
+Lefebvre, with an army of 25,000 Bavarian and French soldiers, 2,000
+of whom were cavalry, was totally beaten by the Tyrolese army,
+consisting of 18,000 armed peasants. The battle, which was fought
+near Innsbrueck, is said to have lasted from six in the morning until
+midnight. For a third time the Tyrol was free.
+
+After this victory, entirely achieved by the peasantry themselves,
+Hofer became the absolute ruler of the country; coins were struck
+with his effigy, and proclamations issued in his name. His power,
+however, scarcely lasted two months, and became the cause of his
+ruin ultimately. Three veteran armies, comprising a force of nearly
+50,000 French and Bavarian troops, were despatched in October to
+subdue the exhausted province; and, unable to make head against
+them, Hofer was obliged to take refuge in the mountains. Soon after,
+a price having been set on his head, a pretended friend (a priest
+named Donay) was induced to betray him, January 20, 1810. After his
+arrest he was conveyed to Mantua, and the intelligence having been
+communicated by telegraph to the French emperor, an order was
+instantly returned that he must be tried. This order was a sentence;
+and after a court-martial, at which, however, the majority were
+averse to a sentence of death, Hofer was condemned to be shot. His
+execution took place on February 20, 1810, his whole military career
+having occupied less than forty weeks. The Emperor Francis conferred
+a handsome pension upon the widow and family of Hofer, and created
+Hofer's son a noble. The Austrian government also raised a marble
+statue of heroic size in the cathedral of Innsbrueck, where the body
+of the patriot was interred; while his own countrymen have
+commemorated his efforts by raising a small pyramid to mark the spot
+where he was taken.
+
+[Illustration: Andreas Hofer led to Execution.]
+
+
+
+
+QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA
+
+By Mrs. FRANCIS G. FAITHFULL
+
+(1776-1810)
+
+[Illustration: Queen Louise of Prussia.]
+
+
+There is at Paretz, near Potsdam, a flower-bordered walk leading
+from a grotto overlooking the Havel to an iron gate, above which is
+inscribed "May 20, 1810" and the letter "L." Within the grotto an
+iron table bears in golden characters, "Remember the Absent."
+
+These words were engraved by order of Friedrich Wilhelm III. of
+Prussia; and the "absent" he would have remembered--"the star of his
+life, who had lighted him so truly on his darkened way"--was the
+wife who died of a broken heart before reaching middle age.
+
+Louise Augusta Wilhelmina, third daughter of Duke Charles of
+Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was born on March 10, 1776, in the city of
+Hanover. Her mother died when she was six years old, and henceforth
+she and her sister Frederica lived with their grandmother, the
+Landgravine of Darmstadt, sometimes at the Burgfreiheit Palace,
+sometimes at a chateau in the Herrengarten, surrounded by formal
+gardens and orangeries. The girls were brought up simply, making
+their own clothes, and going much among the poor. Now and then they
+made expeditions to Strasburg or the Vosges Mountains; and, when the
+Emperor Leopold was crowned at Frankfort, the Frau von Goethe housed
+them hospitably, and was highly entertained by the glee with which
+they worked a quaint sculptured pump in her courtyard. Two years
+later the advance of French troops compelled them to seek refuge
+with their eldest sister, the reigning Duchess of Hildburghausen;
+and on their homeward way they visited the Prussian head-quarters,
+that the Landgravine might present them to the king. His sons were
+with him, and long afterward the Crown Prince told a friend, "I felt
+when I saw her, 'tis she or none on earth."
+
+The wooing was short. On April 24, 1793, he exchanged betrothal
+rings with Louise, and then rejoined his regiment. Soon after, the
+Princesses of Mecklenburg went over to the camp, Louise appearing "a
+heavenly vision" in the eyes of Goethe, who saw her there.
+
+In the December of that same year Berlin, gay with flags and ablaze
+with colored lamps, welcomed Duke Charles and his daughters; and on
+Christmas Eve the diamond crown of the Hohenzollerns was placed on
+her fair head, and in her glistening silver robe she took part in
+the solemn torch procession round the White Saloon.
+
+Then her young husband took her home to their palace in the "Unter
+den Linden." They were very happy. In the sunshine of his wife's
+presence the prince's spirit, crushed in childhood by a harsh tutor,
+soon revived, while Louise, though the darling of the court, was
+always most content when alone with him.
+
+"Thank God! you are my wife again," he exclaimed, one day, when she
+had laid aside her jewels.
+
+"Am I not always your wife?" she asked, laughingly.
+
+"Alas! no; too often you can be only the crown princess."
+
+Her father-in-law never wearied of showering kindnesses on his
+"Princess of Princesses." On her eighteenth birthday he asked if she
+desired anything he could give. "A handful of gold for the Berlin
+poor," was the prompt petition.
+
+"And how large a handful would the birthday child like?"
+
+"As large as the heart of the kindest of kings."
+
+The Castle of Charlottenberg, one of his many gifts to the young
+pair, proving too splendid for their simple tastes, he bought for
+them the Manor of Paretz, about two miles from Potsdam. There Louise
+busied herself with household affairs, while her husband gardened,
+strolled over his fields, or inspected his farm stock. They played
+and sang together, or read Shakespeare and Goethe, while to complete
+this home-life came two baby boys: Fritz, born in October, 1795, and
+Friedrich Wilhelm, in March, 1797. Someone once asked Louise if this
+country existence was not rather dull. "Oh! no," she exclaimed; "I
+am quite happy as the worthy lady of Paretz."
+
+But in the late autumn of 1797 the king died, and the quiet freedom
+of Paretz had to be exchanged for the restraints of court life.
+Little as either of the two desired regal pomp, they played their
+new parts well. Friedrich Wilhelm, stately in bearing, and
+acknowledged as the handsomest man in his realm, looked every inch a
+king; and if his laconic speech and caustic criticisms sometimes
+gave offence, the winning gentleness of his beautiful wife more than
+made amends. Nobles and citizens, statesmen, soldiers, and savants
+were alike made welcome; and Louise knew instinctively how to make
+each show at his best. With eager interest she discussed
+Pestalozzi's ideas with his disciples; and when Gotloeeb Hiller, the
+poet-son of a miner, was presented to her, she led him aside, and by
+the friendly ease with which she talked of things familiar to him,
+speedily banished his shyness. Indeed, ready as she was to recognize
+high gifts and to learn from all able to teach, yet it was to the
+obscure and suffering that her tones were most soft and gracious.
+Even in trifles her thoughtfulness was unfailing. When a count and a
+shoemaker were announced at the same moment, she gave audience first
+to the shoemaker. "For time is more valuable to him."
+
+[Illustration: Queen Louise visiting the Poor.]
+
+At Dantzic she constantly wore an amber necklace, because it had
+been the gift of the townsfolk. The voice which in childhood had
+pleaded for the panting footman running beside her grandmother's
+coach, might still be heard interceding, for when the royal carriage
+was overturned near Warsaw, and the Oberk of Messterin rated the
+servants, Louise interposed: "We are not hurt, and our people have
+assuredly been more alarmed than we."
+
+Sometimes the midday meal was spread beneath a forest tree, and from
+far and near the peasants flocked to get "even a glimpse of her
+lovely face." They followed in crowds while she and the king climbed
+the Schneekoppe on foot, but loyal shouts died into awed silence
+when, at the summit, Friedrich Wilhelm bared his head, and the two
+standing side by side gazed at the glorious view. "That was one of
+the most blessed moments of my life," Louise said afterward; "we
+seemed lifted above this earth and nearer our God."
+
+They entered the mines at Woldenberg by a swift-flowing stream, and
+twenty years afterward the steersman of their boat was fond of
+telling how, in the dark cavern--"The Foxes' Hole"--he saw her well
+by the torchlight. "In all my life I never saw such a face. She
+looked grand, as a queen should look, but gentle as a child. She
+gave me with her own hands two Holland ducats. My wife wears them
+when she goes to church, for what she touched is holy."
+
+Louise had never meddled in foreign politics. She had been, she
+designed to be, only the "Landesmutter," and even when the murder of
+the Duc d'Enghien, seized on Prussian soil, aroused in Berlin a
+storm of indignation, in which she fully shared, she yet sympathized
+in the mental distress which found vent in her husband's
+often-repeated words, "I cannot decide for war."
+
+At last he did decide. In October, 1805, Napoleon ordered Bernadotte
+to march his army corps through Anspach. This contemptuous comment
+on Prussia's ten-years' forbearance was too much for the king's
+pride. Armies were raised in Franconia, Saxony, Westphalia, and
+while the excitement was at fever point the czar came to Berlin. All
+his rare charm of manner was brought to bear, and at midnight, in
+the presence of Louise, the two monarchs, standing with clasped
+hands beside the tomb of the great Friedrich, solemnly pledged
+themselves to a close alliance.
+
+Alexander departed to lead his Russians to Moravia, and Friedrich
+Wilhelm despatched a protest to the French camp; but the envoy,
+Haugwitz, arriving on the eve of Austerlitz, waited the issue of the
+battle, and then, withholding his packet, proposed to the victor a
+fresh treaty with Prussia. There was wrath in Berlin when his doings
+became known. The king at first disowned the disgraceful compact,
+but Austerlitz had just taught him what Napoleon's enemies might
+expect. French troops were already massing on his frontier, and in
+an evil hour he broke faith with the czar! To Louise, who neither
+feared foe nor deserted friend, that was a bitter time--doubly sad,
+indeed, since most of the long winter was spent by the dying bed of
+her youngest child. When she lost him her own strength broke down,
+and the doctors ordered her away to drink the Pyrmont waters. In the
+late summer she was able to rejoin her husband, and he had startling
+news to tell, for war with France was close at hand.
+
+Since Haugwitz's fatal agreement Napoleon had heaped injuries on
+Prussia. Now, at least, king and people were of one mind. The young
+Prussian officers sharpened their swords on the French ambassador's
+window-sills, patriotic songs were hailed with thunders of applause
+in street and theatre, and when the queen, clad in the uniform of
+her own Hussars, rode at their head through the city, she was
+greeted with passionate loyalty.
+
+Unhappily, Friedrich Wilhelm, hitherto too tardy, was now too
+precipitate. He had been passive while France crushed Austria, and
+Austria, suspicious and disabled, neither could nor would assist
+him. Russia, with better reason for distrust, responded generously
+to his appeal, but he did not wait for her promised aid. For all his
+haste, Napoleon, with 180,000 men, was nearing the Thuringian Forest
+before the Prussian troops left Berlin. They were very confident,
+those Prussian troops, and the shouting multitudes who watched the
+well-trained artillery and cavalry defiling by, hardly dreamed of
+disaster; yet it came almost at once. The Saxon corps, led by the
+king's cousin, Prince Louis, pushing on too fast, was surprised and
+surrounded, and the gallant young commander, the queen's dear
+friend, the idol of the army, fell while rallying his men.
+
+Louise, who had hurriedly joined the king from Weimar, could hardly
+be persuaded to leave him, but on the evening of October 13th he
+confided her to a cavalry escort, promising speedy tidings of the
+coming battle. As she threaded the lonely passes of the Hartz
+Mountains she heard the distant cannonading, and a broken sentence
+now and again fell from her lips: "We know that all things work
+together for good." Late in the misty October twilight she drove
+into Brunswick. At Brandenburg a courier brought the news her
+trembling heart awaited. All was lost! Twenty thousand Prussians lay
+on the fields of Auerstadt and Jena, and the French were already in
+Weimar. The king was alive, but two horses had been killed under
+him. Grief-stricken, travel-worn as she was, Louise must not halt.
+Before she reached Berlin her children had been sent to
+Schwedt-on-Oder. She followed thither, almost terrifying them by her
+changed, despairing looks. As soon as she could check her weeping,
+she told her boys all she knew about Prince Louis's death. "Do not
+only grieve for him. Be ready for Prussia's sake to meet death as he
+met it," and then, in burning, never-forgotten words, she bade them
+one day free their country and break the power of France.
+
+There seemed only a choice between utter destruction and utter
+submission, and yet when Napoleon demanded the cession of almost the
+whole kingdom, Friedrich Wilhelm and his wife agreed that "only
+determined resistance can save us." She was slowly rallying at
+Koenigsberg from a fever caught in the crowded city, when the cry was
+raised of the coming French. Propped by pillows, swathed in shawls,
+she drove through blinding sleet to Memel, the one fortress still
+left to the king. At her first halting-place the wind whistled in
+through a broken window, and the melting snow dripped from the roof
+on to her bed. Her companions trembled for her, but she, calm and
+trustful, hailed as a good omen the sunshine which welcomed them
+within the walls of Memel.
+
+A week later Benningsen and his Russians, who had been wading
+knee-deep through Polish forests and fording swollen streams, always
+with 90,000 Frenchmen in hot pursuit, turned to bay amid the frozen
+lakes and drifted snows of Eylau. Next day those snows for miles
+around were red with blood. It was hard to tell with whom the costly
+victory lay, but Napoleon despatched Bertrand to the Russian
+outposts to propose an armistice, and Benningsen sent him on to
+Memel, reminding the Prussian king that it could not be their
+interest to grant what it was Napoleon's interest to ask. The terms
+were, indeed, far easier than those offered after June; but
+Friedrich Wilhelm, true to the ally who had held the field almost
+single-handed through that terrible winter, would make no separate
+agreement, nor did Louise receive more favorably a message to
+herself, conveying Napoleon's wish to pay his court to her in her
+own capital.
+
+Though the piercing Baltic winds tried her strength greatly, she
+employed herself whenever able in reading and visiting the over-full
+hospitals. To a dear friend she said, "I can never be perfectly
+miserable while faith in God is open to me." "Only by patient
+perseverance," so she wrote to her father, "can we succeed. Sooner
+or later I know we shall do so."
+
+It was not to be yet. On June 14, 1807, Napoleon annihilated the
+Russians at Friedland, and four days later Dantzic fell. Her tone
+grew sadder. "We are not yet bereft of peace. My great sorrow is
+being unable to hope."
+
+As the czar could resist no longer and Napoleon desired peace, they
+met at Tilsit, and there, on a covered raft moored midway in the
+Niemen, arranged the outlines of a treaty. The next day Friedrich
+Wilhelm, yielding to stern necessity, accepted terms "to the last
+degree hard and overwhelming." The czar, believing that Louise might
+move even Napoleon to clemency, her husband begged her to join him
+at Tilsit. On reading this summons she burst into tears, declaring
+this the hardest task ever given her to do. "With my broken wing how
+can I succeed?" she pathetically asked.
+
+Napoleon paid his respects soon after her arrival, and they met at
+the stairhead. Louise, for Prussia's sake, forced herself to utter
+courteous regrets that he should have to mount so steep a staircase.
+He answered blandly that no difficulties were feared when striving
+for a reward beyond. Then, touching her gauze robe, asked, "Is it
+crepe?"
+
+"Shall we speak of such trifles at such a time?" was her only reply.
+
+He was silent; then demanded, "How could you make war on me?"
+
+She told him that they had overrated their strength.
+
+"And relying on the great Friedrich's fame you deceived yourselves."
+
+Louise's clear eyes met his steadily. "Sire, resting on the great
+Friedrich's fame, we might naturally deceive ourselves, if, indeed,
+we wholly did so."
+
+Then she told him that she had come to entreat him to be generous to
+Prussia. He answered respectfully, but made no promise. Again, with
+exceeding earnestness, she implored at least for Magdeburg, just
+then Friedrich Wilhelm entered, and Napoleon abruptly took leave.
+
+"Sire," said Talleyrand warningly to him, when they were alone,
+"shall posterity say that you threw away your great conquest for the
+sake of a lovely woman?"
+
+Louise meanwhile dwelt again and again on Napoleon's words, "You ask
+a great deal, but I will think about it." Yet her heart was heavy,
+and when arrayed for the evening banquet in the splendid attire so
+long unworn, she likened herself sadly to the old German victims
+decked for sacrifice. Napoleon said of her afterward, "I knew I
+should see a beautiful and dignified queen; I found the most
+interesting woman and admirable queen I had ever known."
+
+The treaty of Tilsit restored to Friedrich Wilhelm a fragment of his
+kingdom, but even this was to be held by the French till after the
+payment of a huge indemnity. Napoleon's threat that he would make
+the Prussian nobles beg their bread had hardly been a vain one, for
+the unhappy Prussians had to feed, lodge, and clothe every French
+soldier quartered in their land. Dark as was the outlook, Louise was
+upheld by loving pride in her husband. "After Eylau he might have
+deserted a faithful ally. This he would not do. I believe his
+conduct will yet bring good fortune to Prussia."
+
+To help forward that good fortune they sold most of the crown lands
+and the queen's jewels, and had the gold plate melted down. Amid
+their heavy anxieties and pains they were not wholly unhappy, these
+two, who loved each other so entirely. "My Louise," the king said to
+her one day, "you have grown yet dearer to me in this time of
+trouble, for I more fully know the treasure I possess."
+
+She, too, could write of him, "The king is kinder to me than ever, a
+great joy and reward after a union of fourteen years." Still those
+about her told of sleepless nights when prayer was her only relief.
+Her eyes had lost their brightness, her cheeks were pale, her step
+languid. By the Christmas of 1808 the last French soldier had
+quitted Prussian soil; but it was not deemed safe for the royal
+family to return at once to Berlin, and they spent the summer at
+Hufen, near Koenigsberg. Parents and children were constantly
+together, and the mother taught herself to believe that the sharp
+trials of those years would tell for good on her boys and girls. "If
+they had been reared in luxury and prosperity they might think that
+so it must always be."
+
+It was not till the end of 1809 that the exiles turned their faces
+homeward. They travelled slowly, for the queen was still feeble.
+Everywhere a glad welcome greeted them; and on December 23d, the day
+on which, sixteen years before, she had entered the capital a
+girl-bride, Louise drove through its familiar streets in a carriage
+presented to her by the rejoicing citizens. Her father was waiting
+at the palace gate. He helped her to alight and led her in. Three
+years had gone by since she last crossed the threshold of her home,
+and what years they had been! Nor was the return all joy, for she
+knew and dreaded the changes she would find there. Napoleon and his
+generals had not departed empty handed. They had stripped the rooms
+of paintings and statues, of manuscripts and antiquities.
+
+As the doors closed a great shout arose from the vast crowd before
+the palace. Presently she appeared in the balcony, and all saw the
+traces of long anguish in the lovely face, now bright with grateful
+smiles.
+
+After a solemn service in the Dom, the king and queen drove through
+the illuminated city to the opera-house. "The queen sat beside her
+husband"--so wrote Fouque afterward--"and as she talked she often
+raised her eyes to him with a very touching expression.... Our
+beloved queen has thanked us with tears. Bonaparte has dimmed those
+heavenly eyes ... and we must do all we can to make them sparkle
+again."
+
+The bare walls, the empty cabinets of the palace, accorded with the
+almost ascetic habits now maintained there. Self-denial was made
+easy by one belief, that Prussia would arise from her great
+suffering stronger than before. The king and queen were not left to
+work alone toward that high end. Able generals replaced those who,
+through treachery or faint-heartedness, had surrendered the
+fortresses. Stein, now chief minister, curtailed the rights of the
+nobles, and gave the serfs an interest in guarding the soil they
+tilled; while Scharnhorst, by an ingenious evasion of Napoleon's
+edict limiting the Prussian army, contrived to have 200,000 men
+rapidly drilled and trained. The universities founded at Berlin and
+Breslau became the head-quarters of secret societies for the
+deliverance of the Fatherland. Princes and professors, merchants
+ruined by the Berlin decrees, and peasants ground down by French
+exactions, joined the Jugendbund, and implicitly obeyed the orders
+of its unseen heads. Through town and country spread that vast
+brotherhood, fired by the songs of Tieck and Arnim to live or die
+for Prussia.
+
+And Louise watched thankfully the dawning promise of better days,
+"though, alas! we may die before they come."
+
+Perhaps that sad presentiment haunted her husband too. If she jested
+with her children he would say wistfully, "The queen is quite
+herself to-day. What a blessing it will be if her mind recovers its
+joyous tone!"
+
+That spring Louise was attacked by spasms of the heart. They did not
+last long, and when the court moved to Potsdam she seemed to regain
+strength, and showed much interest in discussing with Bishop Eylert
+how best to train her boys so that they might serve their country.
+Though very weak, she accompanied her family to Hohengieritz, the
+king perforce returning to Berlin. The loving eyes that watched her
+saw signs of amendment, but early on Monday, July 16th, the spasms
+recurred. For hours no remedies availed. She could only gasp for
+"Air! air!" and when the sharp pain had passed lay exhausted, now
+murmuring a few words of some hymn learnt as a child, faintly
+thanking God for each solace sent her, or entreating her grandmother
+to rest. No complaint passed her lips; she was only "very, very
+weary."
+
+They told her that couriers had been despatched for the king, and
+she asked anxiously, "Will he soon come?" Before dawn he came,
+bringing the two elder boys. For those who tried to cheer him he had
+only one mournful reply: "If she were not mine she might recover." A
+gleam of joy lighted her pale face when he came to her bedside, but
+perceiving his emotion she asked, "Am I then so very ill?" Unable to
+reply, he hurriedly left the room, and she said to those standing
+by, "His embrace was so wild, so fervent, that it seemed as though
+he would take leave of me. Tell him not to do that, or I shall die
+at once."
+
+He returned bringing in the children.
+
+"My Fritz! my Wilhelm!" She had only time for one long gaze, and
+then the agonizing pain came again. One of the doctors tried to
+raise her, but she sank back. "Only death can help me;" and as all
+watched in breathless silence, she leaned her head against the
+shoulder of a faithful attendant, murmured, "Lord Jesus, shorten
+it!" and with one deep-drawn breath passed away.
+
+
+
+
+JAMES WATT
+
+By JOHN TIMES, F.S.A.
+
+(1736-1819)
+
+[Illustration: James Watt.]
+
+
+James Watt was born at Greenock, January 19, 1736. He was the fourth
+child in a family which, for a hundred years, had more or less
+professed mathematics and navigation. His constitution was delicate,
+and his mental powers were precocious. He was distinguished from an
+early age by his candor and truthfulness; and his father, to
+ascertain the cause of any of his boyish quarrels, used to say, "Let
+James speak; from him I always hear the truth." James also showed
+his constructive tastes equally early, experimenting on his
+playthings with a set of small carpenter's tools, which his father
+had given him. At six he was still at home. "Mr. Watt," said a
+friend to the father, "you ought to send that boy to school, and not
+let him trifle away his time at home." "Look what he is doing before
+you condemn him," was the reply. The visitor then observed the child
+had drawn mathematical lines and figures on the hearth, and was
+engaged in a process of calculation. On putting questions to him, he
+was astonished at his quickness and simplicity. "Forgive me," said
+he, "this child's education has not been neglected; this is no
+common child."
+
+[Illustration: Watt discovering the Condensation of Steam.]
+
+Watt's cousin, Mrs. Marian Campbell, describes his inventive capacity
+as a story-teller, and details an incident of his occupying himself
+with the steam of a tea-kettle, and by means of a cup and a spoon
+making an early experiment in the condensation of steam. To this
+incident she probably attached more importance than was its due, from
+reverting to it when illustrated by her after-recollections. Out of
+this story, reliable or not in the sense ascribed to it, M. Arago
+obtained an oratorical point for an _eloge_, which he delivered to the
+French Institute. Watt may or may not have been occupied as a boy with
+the study of the condensation of steam while he was playing with the
+kettle. The story suggests a possibility, nothing more; though it has
+been made the foundation of a grave announcement, the subject of a
+pretty picture, and will ever remain a basis for suggestive
+speculation.
+
+Watt was sent to a commercial school, where he was provided with a
+fair outfit of Latin and with some elements of Greek; but
+mathematics he studied with greater zest, and with proportionate
+success. By the time he was fifteen, he had read twice, with grave
+attention, Gravesande's "Elements of Natural Philosophy;" and "while
+under his father's roof he went on with various chemical
+experiments, repeating them again and again, until satisfied of
+their accuracy from his own observations." He even made himself a
+small electrical machine, about 1750-53; no mean performance at that
+date, since, according to Priestley's "History of Electricity," the
+Leyden phial itself was not invented until the years 1745-46.
+
+His pastime lay chiefly in his father's marine store, among the
+sails and ropes, the blocks and tackle: or by the old gray gateway
+of the Mansion House on the hill above Greenock, where he would
+loiter away hours by day, and at night lie down on his back and
+watch the stars through the trees.
+
+At this early age Watt suffered from continual and violent
+headaches, which often affected his nervous system for many days,
+even weeks; and he was similarly afflicted throughout his long life.
+He seldom rose early, but accomplished more in a few hours' study
+than ordinary minds do in many days. He was never in a hurry, and
+always had leisure to give to his friends, to poetry, romance, and
+the publications of the day; he read indiscriminately almost every
+new book he could procure. He assisted his father in his business,
+and soon learned to construct with his own hands several of the
+articles required in the way of his parent's trade; and by means of
+a small forge, set up for his own use, he repaired and made various
+kinds of instruments, and converted, by the way, a large silver coin
+into a punch-ladle, as a trophy of his early skill as a metal-smith.
+From this aptitude for ingenious handiwork, and in accordance with
+his own deliberate choice, it was decided that he should proceed to
+qualify himself for following the trade of a mathematical instrument
+maker. He accordingly went to Glasgow, in June, 1754, and from
+there, after a year's stay, he proceeded for better instruction to
+London.
+
+On Watt's arrival in the metropolis, he sought a situation, but in
+vain, and he was beginning to despond, when he obtained work with
+one John Morgan, an instrument-maker, in Finch Lane, Cornhill. Here
+he gradually became proficient in making quadrants, parallel rulers,
+compasses, theodolites, etc., until, at the end of a year's
+practice, he could make "a brass sector with a French joint, which
+is reckoned as nice a piece of framing work as is in the trade."
+During this interval he contrived to live upon eight shillings a
+week, exclusive of his lodging. His fear of the press-gang and his
+bodily ailments, however, led to his quitting London in August,
+1756, and returning to Scotland, after investing twenty guineas in
+additional tools.
+
+At Glasgow, through the intervention of Dr. Dick, he was first
+employed in cleaning and repairing some of the instruments belonging
+to the college; and, after some difficulty, he received permission
+to open a shop within the precincts as "mathematical instrument
+maker to the University." Here Watt prospered, pursuing alike his
+course of manual labor and of mental study, and especially extending
+his acquaintance with physics; endeavoring, as he said, "to find out
+the weak side of nature, and to vanquish her." About this time he
+contrived an ingenious machine for drawing in perspective; and from
+fifty to eighty of these instruments, manufactured by him, were sent
+to different parts of the world. He had now procured the friendship
+of Dr. Black and another University worthy, John Robison, who, in
+stating the circumstances of his first introduction to Watt, says:
+"I saw a workman, and expected no more; but was surprised to find a
+philosopher as young as myself, and always ready to instruct me."
+
+It was some time in 1764 that the professor of natural philosophy in
+the University desired Watt to repair a pretty model of Newcomen's
+steam-engine. Like everything which came into Watt's hands, it soon
+became an object of most serious study.
+
+The interesting little model, as altered by the hand of Watt, was
+long placed beside the noble statue of the engineer in the Hunterian
+Museum at Glasgow. Watt himself, when he had got the bearings of his
+invention, could think of nothing else but his machine, and
+addressed himself to Dr. Roebuck, of the Carron Iron-works, with the
+view of its practical introduction to the world. A partnership
+ensued, but the connection did not prove satisfactory. Watt went on
+with his experiments, and in September, 1766, wrote to a friend: "I
+think I have laid up a stock of experience that will _soon_ pay me
+for the trouble it has cost me." Yet it was between eight and nine
+years before that invaluable experience was made available, so as
+either to benefit the public or repay the inventor; and a much
+longer term elapsed before it was possible for that repayment to be
+reckoned in the form of substantial profit.
+
+Watt now began to practise as a land-surveyor and civil engineer.
+His first engineering work was a survey for a canal to unite the
+Forth and Clyde, in furtherance of which he had to appear before the
+House of Commons. His consequent journey to London was still more
+important, for then it was that he saw for the first time the great
+manufactory which Boulton had established at Soho, and of which he
+was afterward himself to be the guiding intelligence. In the
+meantime, among his other performances, he invented a micrometer for
+measuring distances; and, what is still more remarkable, he
+entertained the idea of moving canal-boats by the steam-engine
+through the instrumentality of a _spiral oar_, which as nearly as
+possible coincides with the screw-propeller of our day.
+
+Watt's negotiations for partnership with Boulton were long and
+tedious. Dr. Roebuck's creditors concurred because, curiously
+enough, _none of them valued Watt's engine at a farthing_. Watt
+himself now began to despair, and his health failed; yet in 1774,
+when he had removed to Birmingham, he wrote to his father: "The
+fire-engine I have invented is now going, and answers much better
+than any other that has yet been made; and I expect that the
+invention will be very beneficial to me."
+
+A long series of experimental trials was, nevertheless, requisite
+before the engine could be brought to such perfection as to render
+it generally available to the public, and therefore profitable to
+its manufacturers. In January, 1775, six years of the patent had
+elapsed, and there seemed some probability of the remaining eight
+running out as fruitlessly. An application which was made for the
+extension of its term was unexpectedly opposed by the eloquence of
+Burke; but the orator and his associates failed, and the extension
+was accorded by Act of Parliament.
+
+The first practical employment of Watt's engines to any considerable
+extent was in the mining districts of Cornwall, where he himself
+was, in consequence, compelled to spend much of his time subsequent
+to 1775. Here he had to contend not only with natural obstacles in
+the dark abysses of deeply flooded mines, but with a rude and
+obstinate class of men as deeply flooded by inveterate prejudices.
+The result in the way of profit was not, however, satisfactory,
+notwithstanding the service to the mining interest was enormous. "It
+appears," says Watt, in 1780, "by our books, that Cornwall has
+hitherto eat up all the profits we have drawn from it, and all we
+have got by other places, and a good sum of our own money to the
+bargain."
+
+At this stage Watt himself was more fertile in mechanical inventions
+than in any other portion of his busy life. Taking his patents in
+their chronological order, the first (subsequent to that of 1769)
+was "For a new method of copying letters and other writings
+expeditiously," by means of copying _presses_. Of the same date was
+his invention of a machine "for drying linen and muslin by steam."
+On October 25, 1781, he took out his third patent (the second of the
+steam-engine series), "for certain new methods of applying the
+vibrating or reciprocating motion of steam or fire engines, to
+produce a continued rotative motion round an axis or centre, and
+thereby to give motion to the wheels of mills or other machines."
+One of these methods was that commonly known as the _sun-and-planet
+wheels_; they were five in all. A favorite employment of his in the
+workshops at Soho, in the later months of 1783 and earlier ones of
+1784, was to teach his steam-engine, now become nearly as docile as
+it was powerful, to work a tilt-hammer for forging iron and making
+steel. "Three hundred blows per minute--a thing never done before,"
+filled him, as his biographer says, with feelings of excusable
+pride. Another patent in the steam-engine series, taken out in 1784,
+contained, besides other methods of converting a circular or angular
+motion into a perpendicular or rectilineal motion, the well-known
+and much-admired _parallel motion_, and the application of the
+steam-engine to give motion to wheel-carriages for carrying persons
+and goods. To ascertain the exact number of strokes made by an
+engine during a given time, and thereby to check the cheats of the
+Cornish miners, Watt also invented the "Counter," with its several
+indexes. Among his leading improvements, introduced at various
+periods, were the _throttle-valve_, the application of the
+_governor_, the _barometer_ or float, the _steam-gauge_, and the
+indicator. The term during which he seems to have thus combined the
+greatest maturity with the greatest activity of intellect, and the
+portion of his life which they comprehended, was from his fortieth
+to his fiftieth year. Yet it was a term of increased suffering from
+his acute sick-headaches, and remarkable for the infirmities over
+which he triumphed; notwithstanding, he himself complained of his
+"stupidity and want of the inventive faculty."
+
+Watt's chemical studies in 1783, and the calculations they involved
+from experiments made by foreign chemists, induced him to make a
+proposal for a philosophical _uniformity of weights and measures_;
+and he discussed this proposal with Priestley and Magellan. While
+Watt was examining the constituent parts of water, he had
+opportunities of familiar intercourse not only with Priestley, but
+with Withering, Keir, Edgeworth, Galton, Darwin, and his own
+partner, Boulton--all men above the average for their common
+interest in scientific inquiries. Dr. Parr frequently attended their
+meetings, and they kept up a correspondence with Sir William
+Herschel, Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Solander, and Afzelius. Mrs.
+Schimmelpenninck, who was greatly given to physiognomical studies,
+has left us this picture of Watt at this period.
+
+"Mr. Boulton was a man to rule society with dignity; Mr. Watt, to
+lead the contemplative life of a deeply introverted and patiently
+observant philosopher. He was one of the most complete specimens of
+the melancholic temperament. His head was generally bent forward, or
+leaning on his hand in meditation; his shoulders stooping, and his
+chest falling in; his limbs lank and unmuscular, and his complexion
+sallow. His intellectual development was magnificent; comparison and
+causality immense, with large ideality and constructiveness,
+individuality, an enormous concentrativeness and caution.
+
+"He had a broad Scottish accent; gentle, modest, and unassuming
+manners; yet, when he entered a room, men of letters, men of
+science, nay, military men, artists, ladies, even little children,
+thronged round him. Ladies would appeal to him on the best means of
+devising grates, curing smoky chimneys, warming their houses, and
+obtaining fast colors. I can speak from experience of his teaching
+me how to make a dulcimer and improve a Jew's harp."
+
+In the year 1786, Watt and Boulton visited Paris, on the invitation
+of the French Government, to superintend the erection of certain
+steam-engines, and especially to suggest improvements in the great
+hydraulic machine of Marly, which Watt himself designates a
+"venerable" work. In Paris Watt made many acquaintances, including
+Lavoisier, Laplace, Fourcroy, and others scarcely less eminent; and
+while here he discussed with Berthollet a new method of _bleaching_
+by chlorides, an invention of the latter which Watt subsequently
+introduced into England.
+
+Meanwhile Watt had vigilantly to defend his patents at home, which
+were assailed by unworthy and surreptitious rivals as soon as it was
+proved that they were pecuniarily valuable. Some of the competing
+engines, as Watt himself described them, were simply asthmatic.
+"Hornblower's, at Radstock, was obliged to stand still once every
+ten minutes to snore and snort." "Some were like Evan's mill, _which
+was a gentlemanly mill_; it would go when it had nothing to do, but
+it refused to work." The legal proceedings, both in equity and at
+common law, which now became necessary, were numerous. One bill of
+costs, from 1796 to 1800, amounted to between L5,000 and L6,000; and
+the mental and bodily labor, the anxiety and vexation, which were
+superadded, involved a fearful tax on the province of Watt's
+discoveries.
+
+With the year 1800 came the expiration of the privilege of the
+patent of 1769, as extended by the statute of 1775; and also the
+dissolution of the original copartnership of Messrs. Boulton and
+Watt, then of five-and-twenty years' duration. The contract was
+renewed by their sons, the business having become so profitable that
+Watt and his children were provided with a source of independent
+income; and at the age of sixty-four the great inventor had
+personally realized some of the benefits he contemplated.
+
+Henceforth Watt's ingenuity became excursive, discretionary, almost
+capricious; but in every phase and form it continued to be
+beneficent. In 1808 he founded a prize in Glasgow College, as an
+acknowledgment of "the many favors that learned body had conferred
+upon him." In 1816 he made a donation to the town of Greenock, "to
+form the beginning of a scientific library" for the instruction of
+its young men. Nor, amid such donations, were others wanting on his
+part, such as true religion prescribes, to console the poor and
+relieve the suffering.
+
+In 1816, on a visit to Greenock, Watt made a voyage in a steamboat
+to Rothsay and back again. In the course of this experimental trip
+he pointed out to the engineer of the boat the method of "backing"
+the engine. With a foot-rule he demonstrated to him what he meant.
+Not succeeding, however, he at last, under the impulse of the ruling
+passion (and we must remember he was then eighty), threw off his
+overcoat, and putting his hand to the engine himself, showed the
+practical application of his lecture. Previously to this, the
+"backstroke" of the steamboat engine was either unknown or not
+generally known. The practice was to stop the engine entirely a
+considerable time before the vessel reached the point of mooring, in
+order to allow for the gradual and natural diminution of her speed.
+
+With regard to the application of steam power to _locomotion on
+land_, it is remarkable enough that, when Watt's attention was first
+directed, by his friend Robison, to the steam-engine, "he (Robison)
+at that time drew out an idea of applying the power to the moving of
+wheel-carriages." "But the scheme," adds Watt, "was not matured, and
+was soon abandoned on his going abroad."
+
+In 1769, however, when he heard that a linen-draper, one Moore, had
+taken out a patent for moving wheel-carriages by steam, he replied:
+"If linen-draper Moore does not use my engine to drive his chaises,
+he can't drive them by steam." In the specification of his patent of
+1784, he even described the principles and construction of
+"steam-engines which are applied to give motion to wheel-carriages
+for removing persons or goods, or other matters, from place to
+place," and in 1786, Watt himself had a steam-carriage "of some size
+under hand;" but his most developed plan was to move such carriages
+"on a hard smooth plane," and there is no evidence to show that he
+ever anticipated the union of the rail and wheel.
+
+Among Watt's mechanical recreations, soon after the date of the last
+of his steam-engine patents, were four plans of making lamps, which
+he describes in a letter to Argand; and for a long time lamps were
+made at Soho upon his principles, which gave a light surpassing,
+both in steadiness and brilliancy, anything of the kind that had
+appeared. About a year after, in 1788, he made "a pretty instrument
+for determining the specific gravities of liquids," having, he says
+to Dr. Black, improved on a hint he had taken.
+
+Watt also turned his "idle thoughts" toward the construction of an
+_arithmetical machine_, but he does not appear ever to have
+prosecuted this design further than by mentally considering the
+manner in which he could make it perform the processes of
+multiplication and division.
+
+Early in the present century Watt devised, for the Glasgow
+water-works, to bring pure spring-water across the Clyde, an
+articulated suction-pipe, with joints formed on the principle of
+those in a lobster's tail, and so made capable of accommodating
+itself to all the actual and possible bendings at the bottom of the
+river. This pipe was, moreover, executed at Soho from his plans, and
+was found to succeed perfectly.
+
+Watt describes, as his hobby, a _machine to copy sculpture_,
+suggested to him by an implement he had seen and admired in Paris in
+1802, where it was used for tracing and multiplying the dies of
+medals. He foresaw the possibility of enlarging its powers so as to
+make it capable of working even on wood and marble, to do for solid
+masses and in hard materials what his copying machine of 1782 had
+already done for drawings and writings impressed upon flat surfaces
+of paper--to produce, in fact, a perfect fac-simile of the original
+model. He worked at this machine most assiduously, and his "likeness
+lathe," as he termed it, was set up in a garret, which, with all its
+mysterious contents, its tools, and models included, have been
+carefully preserved as he left them.
+
+It is gratifying to find that the charm of Watt's presence was not
+dimmed by age. "His friends," says Lord Jeffrey, speaking of a visit
+which he paid to Scotland when upward of eighty, "in that part of
+the country never saw him more full of intellectual vigor and
+colloquial animation, never more delightful or more instructive." It
+was then also that Sir Walter Scott, meeting him "surrounded by a
+little band of northern literati," saw and heard what he felt he was
+never to see or hear again--"the alert, kind, benevolent old man,
+his talents and fancy overflowing on every subject, with his
+attention alive to everyone's question his information at everyone's
+command." Campbell, the poet, who saw him later, in the beginning
+of 1819 (he was then eighty-three), describes him as so full of
+anecdote, that he spent one of the most amusing days he had ever had
+with him. Lord Brougham, later still, in the summer of the same
+year, found his instructive conversation and his lively and even
+playful manner unchanged. But in the autumn of this year, on August
+19th, he expired tranquilly at his house at Heathfield. He was
+buried at Handsworth. A tribute to his memory was but tardily
+rendered by the nation.
+
+Jeffrey and Arago added more elaborate tributes to Watt's genius;
+and Wordsworth has declared that he looked upon him, considering his
+magnitude and universality, "as perhaps the most extraordinary man
+that this country has ever produced." His noblest monument is,
+however, his own work.
+
+
+
+
+DR. EDWARD JENNER
+
+By JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A.
+
+(1749-1823)
+
+[Illustration: Dr. Edward Jenner.]
+
+
+Few of the many thousand ills which human flesh is heir to, have
+spread such devastation among the family of man as small-pox. Its
+universality has ranged from the untold tribes of savages to the
+silken baron of civilization; and its ravages on life and beauty
+have been shown in many a sad tale of domestic suffering. To stay
+the destroying hand of such a scourge, which by some has been
+identified with the Plague of Athens, was reserved for Edward
+Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination.
+
+The great fact can, however, be traced half a century before
+Jenner's time. In the journal of John Byron, F.R.S., under date June
+3, 1725, it is recorded that: "At a meeting of the Royal Society,
+Sir Isaac Newton presiding, Dr. Jurin read a case of small-pox,
+where a girl who had been inoculated and had been vaccinated, was
+tried and had them not again; but another [a] boy, caught the
+small-pox from this girl, and had the confluent kind and died."
+
+This case occurred at Hanover. The inoculation of the girl seems to
+have failed entirely; it was suspected that she had not taken the true
+small-pox; doubts, however, were removed, as a boy, who daily saw the
+girl, fell ill and died, "having had a very bad small-pox of the
+confluent sort." This is the first use of the word _vaccination_, or,
+more familiarly, cow-pox, which is an eruption arising from the
+insertion into the system of matter obtained from the eruption on the
+teats and udders of cows, and especially in Gloucestershire; it is
+also frequently denominated _vaccine matter_; and the whole affair,
+inoculation and its consequences, is called vaccination, from the
+Latin _vacca_, a cow.
+
+It is admitted that Jenner's merit lay in the scientific application
+of his knowledge of the fact that the chapped hands of milkers of cows
+sometimes proved a preventive of small-pox, and from those of them
+whom he endeavored to inoculate resisting the infection. These results
+were probably known far beyond Jenner's range, and long before his
+time; for we have respectable testimony of their having come within
+the observation of a Cheshire gentleman, who had been informed of them
+shortly after settling on his estate in Prestbury parish, in or about
+1740. This does not in the least detract from Jenner's merit, but
+shows that to his genius for observation, analogy, and experiment, we
+are indebted for this application of a simple fact, only incidentally
+remarked by others, but by Jenner rendered the stepping-stone to his
+great discovery--or, in other words, extending its benefits from a
+single parish in Gloucestershire to the whole world.
+
+We agree with a contemporary, that, "among all the names which ought
+to be consecrated by the gratitude of mankind, that of Jenner stands
+pre-eminent. It would be difficult, we are inclined to say
+impossible, to select from the catalogue of benefactors to human
+nature an individual who has contributed so largely to the
+preservation of life, and to the alleviation of suffering. Into
+whatever corner of the world the blessing of printed knowledge has
+penetrated, there also will the name of Jenner be familiar; but the
+fruits of his discovery have ripened in barbarous soils, where books
+have never been opened, and where the savage does not pause to
+inquire from what source he has derived relief. No improvement in
+the physical sciences can bear a parallel with that which ministers
+in every part of the globe to the prevention of deformity, and, in a
+great proportion, to the exemption from actual destruction."
+
+The ravages which the small-pox formerly committed are scarcely
+conceived or recollected by the present generation. An instance of
+death occurring after vaccination is now eagerly seized and
+commented upon; yet seventy years have not elapsed since this
+disease might fairly be termed the scourge of mankind, and an enemy
+more extensive and more insidious than even the plague. A family
+blighted in its fairest hopes through this terrible visitation was
+an every-day spectacle: the imperial House of Austria lost eleven of
+its offspring in fifty years. This instance is mentioned because it
+is historical; but in the obscure and unrecorded scenes of life this
+pest was often a still more merciless intruder.
+
+Edward Jenner was the third son of the Vicar of Berkeley, in
+Gloucestershire, where he was born, May 17, 1749. Before he was nine
+years of age he showed a growing taste for natural history, in
+forming a collection of the nests of the dormouse; and when at
+school at Cirencester he was fond of searching for fossils, which
+abound in that neighborhood. He was articled to a surgeon at
+Sudbury, near Bristol, and at the end of his apprenticeship came to
+London, and studied under John Hunter, with whom he resided as a
+pupil for two years and formed a lasting friendship with that great
+man. In 1773 he returned to his native village, and commenced
+practice as a surgeon and apothecary, with great success.
+Nevertheless, he abstracted from the fatigues of country practice
+sufficient time to form a museum of specimens of comparative anatomy
+and natural history. He was much liked, was a man of lively and
+simple humor, and loved to tell his observation of nature in homely
+verse; and in 1788 he communicated to the Royal Society his curious
+paper on the cuckoo. At the same time he carried to London a drawing
+of the casual disease, as seen on the hands of the milkers, and
+showed it to Sir Everard Home and to others. John Hunter had alluded
+frequently to the fact in his lectures; Dr. Adams had heard of the
+cow-pox both from Hunter and Clive, and mentions it in his "Treatise
+on Poisons," published in 1795, three years previous to Jenner's own
+publication. Still, no one had the courage or the penetration to
+prosecute the inquiry except Jenner.
+
+Jenner now resolved to confine his practice to medicine, and
+obtained, in 1792, a degree of M.D. from the University of St.
+Andrew's.
+
+We now arrive at the great event of Jenner's life. While pursuing
+his professional education in the house of his master at Sudbury, a
+young countrywoman applied for advice; and the subject of small-pox
+being casually mentioned, she remarked she could not take the
+small-pox because she had had cow-pox; and he then learnt that it
+was a popular notion in that district, that milkers who had been
+infected with a peculiar eruption which sometimes occurred on the
+udder of the cow, were completely secure against the small-pox. The
+medical gentlemen of the district told Jenner that the security
+which it gave was not perfect; and Sir George Baker, the physician,
+treated it as a popular error. But Jenner thought otherwise; and
+although John Hunter and other eminent surgeons disregarded the
+subject, Jenner pursued it. He found at Berkeley that some persons,
+to whom it was impossible to give small-pox by inoculation, had had
+cow-pox; but that others who had had cow-pox yet received small-pox.
+This led to the doctor's discovery that the cow was subject to a
+certain eruption, which had the power of guarding from small-pox;
+and next, that it might be possible to propagate the cow-pox, and
+with it security from the small-pox, first from the cow to the human
+body, and thence from one person to another. Here, then, was an
+important discovery, that matter from the cow, intentionally
+inserted into the body, gave a slighter ailment than when received
+otherwise, and yet had the same effect of completely preventing
+small-pox. But of what advantage was it for mankind that the cows of
+Gloucestershire possessed a matter thus singularly powerful? How
+were persons living at a distance to derive benefit from this great
+discovery? Dr. Jenner, having inoculated several persons from a cow,
+took the matter from the human vesicles thus produced, and
+inoculated others, and others from them again; thus making it pass
+in succession through many individuals, and all with the same good
+effect in preventing small-pox.
+
+An opportunity occurred of making a trial of the latter on May 14,
+1796 (a day still commemorated by the annual festival at Berlin),
+when a boy, aged eight years, was vaccinated with matter from the
+hands of a milkmaid; the experiment succeeded, and he was inoculated
+for small-pox on July 1st following without the least effect. Dr.
+Jenner then extended his experiments, and in 1798 published his
+first memoir on the subject. He had originally intended to
+communicate his results to the Royal Society, but was admonished not
+to do so, lest it should injure the character which he had
+previously acquired among scientific persons by his paper on the
+natural history of the cuckoo. In the above work Dr. Jenner
+announces the security against small-pox afforded by the true
+cow-pox, and also traces the origin of that disease in the cow to a
+similar affection of the heel of the horse.
+
+The method, however, met with much opposition, until, in the
+following year, thirty-three leading physicians and forty eminent
+surgeons of London signed an earnest expression of their confidence
+in the efficacy of the cow-pox. The royal family of England exerted
+themselves to encourage Jenner; the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of
+York, the king, the Prince of Wales, and the queen bestowed great
+attention upon Jenner. The incalculable utility of cow-pox was at
+last evinced; and observation and experience furnished evidence
+enough to satisfy the Baillies and Heberdens, the Monros and
+Gregorys of Britain, as well as the physicians of Europe, India, and
+America. The new practice now began to supersede the old plan
+pursued by the Small-pox Hospital, which had been founded for
+inoculation. The two systems were each pursued until 1808, when the
+hospital governors discontinued small-pox inoculation.
+
+A committee of Parliament was now appointed to consider the claims
+of Jenner upon the gratitude of his country. It was clearly proved
+that he had converted into scientific demonstration a tradition of
+the peasantry. Two parliamentary grants, of L10,000 and L20,000,
+were voted to him. In 1808 the National Vaccine Establishment was
+formed by Government, and placed under his direction. Honors were
+profusely showered upon him by various foreign princes, as well as
+by the principal learned bodies of Europe.
+
+Dr. Jenner passed the remainder of his years principally at Berkeley
+and at Cheltenham, continuing to the last, his inquiries on the
+great object of his life. He died at Berkeley, in February, 1823, at
+the green old age of seventy-four: his remains lie in the chancel of
+the parish church of Berkeley. A marble statue by Sievier has been
+erected to his memory in the nave of Gloucester Cathedral; and
+another statue of him has been placed in a public building at
+Cheltenham. Five medals have been struck in honor of Jenner: three
+by the German nation; one by the surgeons of the British navy; and
+the fifth by the London Medical Society.
+
+[Illustration: The First Vaccination--Dr. Jenner.]
+
+Dr. Jenner was endowed with a rare quality of mind, which it may be
+both interesting and beneficial to sketch. A singular originality of
+thought was his leading characteristic. He appeared to have
+naturally inherited what in others is the result of protracted
+study. He seemed to think from originality of perception alone,
+and not from induction. He arrived by a glance at inferences which
+would have occupied the laborious conclusions of most men. In human
+and animal pathology, in comparative anatomy, and in geology, he
+perceived facts and formed theories instantaneously, and with a
+spirit of inventive penetration which distanced the slower
+approaches of more learned men. But if his powers of mind were
+singularly great, the qualities which accompanied them were still
+more felicitous. He possessed the most singular amenity of
+disposition with the highest feeling, the rarest simplicity united
+to the highest genius. In the great distinction and the superior
+society to which his discovery introduced him, the native cast of
+his character was unchanged. Among the great monarchs of Europe,
+who, when in Great Britain, solicited his acquaintance, he was the
+unaltered Dr. Jenner of his birthplace. In the other moral points of
+his character, affection, friendship, beneficence, and liberality
+were pre-eminent In religion, his belief was equally remote from
+laxity and fanaticism; and he observed to an intimate friend, not
+long before his death, that he wondered not that the people were
+ungrateful to him for his discovery, but he was surprised that they
+were ungrateful to God for the benefits of which he was the humble
+means.
+
+
+
+
+ROBERT FULTON[8]
+
+         [Footnote 8: Copyright, 1864, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By OLIVER OPTIC
+
+(1765-1815)
+
+[Illustration: Robert Fulton.]
+
+
+Very few inventors have achieved success in giving to the world new
+or improved methods of carrying on the business of life without long
+and hard study, repeated experiments and failures, and trying
+struggles with opposing elements. Many have labored through long
+years of poverty and obscurity to dazzle their fellow-beings in the
+end by the triumph of genius. The idea of an inventor has almost
+become coupled with that of anxiety, patient or impatient waiting,
+trials, and hardships. They are usually enthusiasts in the special
+pursuit to which they devote themselves, and the coldness and
+incredulity of those whose approval they seek to win, wear heavily
+upon them. The chilling common-sense of men more practical than
+themselves overwhelms them.
+
+If the wonderful improvements of the present and the past age could
+be placed in comparison with the attempts, the struggles, to
+accomplish what has now been achieved, the list of failures would
+far outnumber that of successes. Many of those who have rendered
+priceless blessings to their own and after generations by the
+production of wonderful machines or methods from the fine fibre of
+their brains, were plundered and buffeted, even in the midst of
+their grand successes, to such a degree that it requires a lofty
+comprehension to determine whether their lives were triumphs or
+defeats. Sometimes the failure of one generation becomes the success
+of the next.
+
+Born the same year that gave Robert Fulton to the world was Eli
+Whitney, who really made "cotton king," so that the great staple of
+the South yielded millions upon millions of dollars to the planters;
+but he might have died a beggar, so far as his marvellous invention
+affected his fortunes. Before he had fully completed his machine for
+separating the seeds from the cotton, which only two persons had
+been permitted to see, his workshop was broken open, and it was
+stolen. His idea was incorporated in other machines before he had
+obtained his patent, though it was only his own that transmuted
+cotton into gold. False reports, the repudiation of contracts for
+royalties fairly made, the refusal of Congress, through Southern
+influence, to renew his patent, constant litigation to protect his
+rights, harassed his life, and robbed him of the pecuniary results
+of his success. Defeated, he gave up the battle, devoted his
+attention to the manufacture of firearms, and finally made a fortune
+in this business. Fulton's experience was not very different.
+
+On the other hand, important discoveries in methods and mechanical
+appliances have been made by accident, as it were, and fortunes
+accrued from very little labor or study; but these are the
+exceptions rather than the rule.
+
+It would be difficult to estimate the influence upon the prosperity
+of the United States of steam-navigation. It came but a few years
+after the organization of the Federal Government, when the greater
+portion of the territorial extent of the country was a wilderness,
+and preceded the general use of railroads by a quarter of a century.
+Transportation on the inland waters of the nation was slow,
+difficult, and expensive, and the introduction of the steamboat upon
+its great lakes and rivers, notably upon the latter, was a new era
+in its history. On the great streams of the West flatboats floated
+for weeks, laden with the productions of the States, on their way to
+a market, where days or hours are sufficient at the present time.
+Between the metropolis of the nation and the capital of New York,
+the sloops, which were the only means of communication by water,
+required an average of four days to make the trip of about one
+hundred and fifty miles, while to-day it is accomplished in half a
+day or less.
+
+Now all the navigable rivers of the country are alive with
+steamboats, and the growth and development of the States have been
+mainly indebted to the introduction of steam navigation. On the
+great lakes, though more available for transportation by means of
+sailing vessels, the same powerful agency has achieved wonders, and
+all of them are now covered by lines of steamers, by which, either
+as tow-boats or independent vessels, a large proportion of the
+inland commerce of the nation is carried on. On the ocean the result
+of the introduction of steam-navigation is even more impressive, and
+nations separated by thousands of miles of rolling billows now join
+hands, as it were, with hearts commercially united, if not more
+intimately, through the medium of peace-giving commerce, of which
+thousands of gigantic steamers are the angel-messengers. On the
+Atlantic a score or more of them leave the one side for the other
+every week, and at the present time a merchant may breakfast in New
+York on Saturday, and dine in London the next Saturday.
+
+It is now conceded, both in Europe and America, that the world is
+indebted to Robert Fulton for the practical application of steam to
+the purposes of navigation. Whatever has been claimed for or by
+others in regard to the priority of the invention or application of
+the mighty power of steam to the propulsion of vessels, Fulton was
+"the first to apply it with any degree of practical success," as an
+English work states it. As one who labored for years over the idea
+which came from his own brain, though it also came to others, who
+wellnigh sacrificed his own life in its improvement, and who
+achieved the crowning glory of its utility, he is certainly entitled
+to be regarded and honored as the Father of Steam-Navigation.
+
+Robert Fulton was born in a small village near Lancaster, in the
+State of Pennsylvania, in the year 1765. He was the son of a poor
+man of Scotch-Irish descent, who died when his son was only three
+years old. He obtained only a common-school education, which he
+afterward increased by his own efforts. He early manifested a taste
+for, and considerable skill in, drawing and painting, and he
+selected this art as his profession, though he was more inclined to
+mechanical occupations, and spent his leisure hours in the shops of
+the workmen in his vicinity. He was somewhat precocious in his
+development, and at the age of seventeen he established himself as a
+portrait painter. He could hardly have attained to any high standard
+in art, though it appears that he had considerable success in his
+occupation, for at the age of twenty-one he had purchased a small
+farm in the western part of the State, where he placed his mother,
+indicating that he had a proper filial regard for the welfare of his
+remaining parent. It was evident from this success that he had
+decided talent and that it attracted the attention of others.
+
+He was advised to visit England and place himself under the tuition
+of Benjamin West, the eminent American painter, who had achieved
+distinguished success in art. He followed this advice, was kindly
+received by the great artist, and remained as an inmate of his home
+for some years. In the palaces and mansions of the British nobility
+were treasured up many of the most noted pictures of the day and of
+the past. In order to see, study, and copy these, Fulton procured
+letters of introduction which gave him admission to these paintings.
+He resided for some time in the stately mansions of the Duke of
+Bridgewater and Earl Stanhope. Both of these peers were largely
+interested in making internal improvements in England, especially in
+promoting inland navigation by canals.
+
+The duke was the possessor of immense wealth, and he had invested
+largely in companies connected with the canal system. Through him
+Fulton became interested in the same subject, and his mechanical
+tastes and talent drew him in that direction. The result was that he
+abandoned his easel and became a civil engineer, a profession hardly
+known by that name in the early part of this century. Earl Stanhope
+was also of a mechanical turn of mind, and had projected some
+important enterprises. At that time he was engaged upon a scheme
+which afterward filled up so much of the existence of Fulton--the
+application of steam to navigation.
+
+The earl had devised a method of accomplishing the result, and had
+caused a small craft to be built which was to be propelled by a
+series of floats, by some compared to the paddles of a canoe, and by
+others to the feet of water-fowls. He described his plan to Fulton,
+who did not regard it as practicable, and stated plainly the reasons
+for his belief. The earl clung to his idea, highly as he appreciated
+the talents of the critic. The inventor resided at Birmingham about
+two years, and was employed in a subordinate capacity at his newly
+adopted profession for the greater portion of the time. In this city
+he made the acquaintance of Watt, who had developed the steam-engine
+from a mere pumping-machine to something near what it is at the
+present time.
+
+Fulton's inventive genius was exercised during his residence at
+Birmingham, and he devised an improvement of the machine for sawing
+marble, from which he reaped both honor and profit. He produced a
+machine for spinning flax, and for the manufacture of ropes, and
+also one for excavating canals or river bottoms, for which purpose
+many such are now in use. As an author he wrote a work on canals,
+and published a treatise on the same subject in a London paper. He
+had a plan for the use of inclined planes in changing the level of
+the water for boats on canals, in place of locks, after the manner
+of the Chinese, claiming that greater elevations could be overcome
+in this manner; but it was never adopted.
+
+In 1797 Fulton went to Paris, where he resided seven years, as the
+terrors of the French Revolution were passing away. At this period
+he had invented what is now called a torpedo, largely used in modern
+warfare for the protection of harbors. He devised a submarine boat
+to operate these destructive weapons, which was not a success. He
+demonstrated what he claimed for the torpedo in the destruction of a
+brig of two hundred tons; but he failed to procure the adoption of
+this more modern engine of warfare by either France or England, and
+he had the honor to be snubbed by Napoleon I. In 1806 he returned to
+New York, where he labored for the recognition and introduction of
+the torpedo. He was encouraged by Jefferson and Madison, and
+Congress appropriated money for experiments; but the naval officers
+reported against him, and nothing came of his efforts.
+
+In Paris he had made the acquaintance of Chancellor Livingston, then
+the American minister to France, who was interested in Fulton's
+work, and who soon entered into business relations with him in
+connection with it. He was a man of abundant fortune, while the
+inventor was comparatively poor; occupied an elevated social
+position, and was a person of great influence. He obtained a grant
+of the monopoly of steam-navigation from the State of New York.
+Fulton took out two patents for his invention; but unfortunately
+they were not adequate to his protection, for they covered only the
+application of the steam-engine to the turning of a crank in
+producing the rotary motion of the paddle-wheels.
+
+While in England Fulton had contracted with Watt for the building of
+such an engine as he desired, without stating the purpose for which
+it was to be used. This engine reached New York at about the same
+time as the inventor. He made his plans for the construction of the
+boat, which was to be of different form and proportions from
+ordinary vessels, and it was completed and fitted out with its
+engine during the year following his return. Not long before this
+event, when he found the sum of money Mr. Livingston had provided to
+complete the steamboat was nearly exhausted, Fulton attempted to
+sell an interest in his exclusive grant in order to raise funds to
+supply the deficiency; but so little faith existed in the success of
+his enterprise that he could find no one who had the courage to
+purchase it. But the vessel was finished, and a trial trip was made
+in her, to which gentlemen of science and general intelligence were
+invited, most of them, like the rest of the world, sceptics and
+unbelievers. A few minutes served to satisfy these men that the
+steamboat was a success, and that the problem of steam-navigation
+had been solved in its favor. It was the hour of Fulton's triumph.
+
+The strange craft, to which the name of Clermont had been given,
+soon made a trip to Albany, accomplishing the distance in thirty-two
+hours, or one-third of the average time of the sloops, and making
+the return in thirty. Doubters and cavillers were silenced, and
+regular trips were made till the ice closed the river for the
+season. During the winter the Clermont was lengthened to one hundred
+and forty feet, improved in many respects, gaudily painted, and
+looked upon as a "floating palace." Another steamboat, called the
+Car of Neptune, was built, and soon a contract for five more was
+placed. The practical triumph had been achieved, and from that small
+beginning has come forth the mighty steam-marine of the present
+time.
+
+Fulton was married to Miss Harriet Livingston, a niece of the
+Chancellor, and was the father of four children. His business
+affairs were in anything but a prosperous condition. The State of
+New Jersey contested his monopoly, which proved to have been
+unconstitutionally granted. Fitch, or his successors, who had made
+some successes in the same line, endeavored to supplant him, and his
+patents were worthless. He was embarrassed by constant litigation,
+and his last years were full of trials and anxiety. He died February
+24, 1815, at the age of fifty.
+
+[Signature: William S. Adams.]
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM WILBERFORCE
+
+(1759-1833)
+
+[Illustration: William Wilberforce.]
+
+
+William Wilberforce, whose name a heartfelt, enlightened, and
+unwearied philanthropy, directing talents of the highest order, has
+enrolled among those of the most illustrious benefactors of mankind,
+was born August 24, 1759, in Hull, England, where his ancestors had
+been long and successfully engaged in trade. By his father's death he
+was left an orphan at an early age. He received the chief part of his
+education at the grammar school of Pockington, in Yorkshire, and at
+St. John's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow-commoner
+about 1776 or 1777. When just of age, and apparently before taking his
+B.A. degree, he was returned for his native town at the general
+election of 1780. In 1784 he was returned again, but being also chosen
+member for Yorkshire he elected to sit for that great county, which he
+continued to represent until the year 1812, during six successive
+Parliaments. From 1812 to 1825, when he retired from Parliament, he
+was returned by Lord Calthorpe for the borough of Bramber. His
+politics were in general those of Mr. Pitt's party, and his first
+prominent appearance was in 1783, in opposition to Mr. Fox's India
+Bill. In 1786 he introduced and carried through the Commons a bill for
+the amendment of the criminal code, which was roughly handled by the
+Lord Chancellor, Thurlow, and rejected in the House of Lords without a
+division.
+
+At the time when Mr. Wilberforce was rising into manhood, the
+inquiry into the slave trade had engaged in a slight degree the
+attention of the public. To the Quakers belongs the high honor of
+having taken the lead in denouncing that unjust and unchristian
+traffic. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, during the life
+of Penn, the Quakers of Pennsylvania passed a censure upon it, and
+from time to time the Society of Friends expressed their
+disapprobation of the deportation of negroes, until, in 1761, they
+completed their good work by a resolution to disown all such as
+continued to be engaged in it. Occasionally the question was brought
+before magistrates, whether a slave became entitled to his liberty
+upon landing in England. In 1765 Granville Sharp came forward as the
+protector of a negro, who, having been abandoned and cast upon the
+world in disease and misery by his owner, was healed and assisted
+through the charity of Mr. Sharp's brother. Recovering his value
+with his health, he was claimed and seized by his master, and would
+have been shipped to the colonies, as many Africans were, but for
+the prompt and resolute interference of Mr. Sharp. In several
+similar cases the same gentleman came forward successfully; but the
+general question was not determined, or even argued, until 1772,
+when the celebrated case of the negro Somerset was brought before
+the Court of King's Bench, which adjudged, after a deliberate
+hearing, that in England the right of the master over the slave
+could not be maintained. The general question was afterward, in
+1778, decided still more absolutely by the Scotch Courts, in the
+case of Wedderburn _vs._ Knight. In 1783 an event occurred well
+qualified to rouse the feelings of the nation, and call its
+attention to the atrocities of which the slave trade was the cause
+and pretext. An action was brought by certain underwriters against
+the owners of the ship Zong, on the ground that the captain had
+caused 132 weak, sickly slaves to be thrown overboard for the
+purpose of claiming their value, for which the plaintiffs would not
+have been liable if the cargo had died a natural death. The fact of
+the drowning was admitted, and defended on the plea that want of
+water had rendered it necessary, though it appeared that the crew
+had not been put upon short allowance. It now seems incredible that
+no criminal proceeding should have been instituted against the
+perpetrators of this wholesale murder.
+
+In 1785 the Vice-chancellor of Cambridge proposed as the subject for
+the Bachelor's Prize Essay, the question, Is it allowable to enslave
+men without their consent? Thomas Clarkson, who had gained the prize
+in the preceding year, again became a candidate. Conceiving that the
+thesis, though couched in general terms, had an especial reference
+to the African slave trade, he went to London to make inquiries on
+the subject. Investigation brought under his view a mass of
+cruelties and abominations which engrossed his thoughts and shocked
+his imagination. By night and day they haunted him; and he has
+described in lively colors the intense pain which this composition,
+undertaken solely in the spirit of honorable rivalry, inflicted on
+him. He gained the prize, but found it impossible to discard the
+subject from his thoughts. In the succeeding autumn, after great
+struggles of mind, he resolved to give up his plan for entering the
+Church, and devoted time, health, and substance (to use his own
+words) to "seeing these calamities to an end." In sketching the
+progress of this great measure, the name of Wilberforce alone will
+be presented to view; and it is our duty, therefore, in the first
+place, to make honorable mention of him who first roused Wilberforce
+in the cause, and whose athletic vigor and indomitable perseverance
+surmounted danger, difficulties, fatigues, and discouragements which
+few men could have endured, in the first great object of collecting
+evidence of the cruelties habitually perpetrated in the slave trade.
+
+In the first stage of his proceedings, Mr. Clarkson, in the course
+of his application to members of Parliament, called on Mr.
+Wilberforce, who stated that "the subject had often employed his
+thoughts and was near his heart." He inquired into the authorities
+for the statements laid before him, and became not only convinced
+of, but impressed with, the paramount duty of abolishing so hateful
+a traffic. Occasional meetings of those who were alike interested
+were held at his house; and in May, 1787, a committee was formed, of
+which Wilberforce became the Parliamentary leader. Early in 1788 he
+gave notice of his intention to bring the subject before the House;
+but, owing to his severe indisposition, that task was ultimately
+undertaken by Mr. Pitt, who moved and carried a resolution, pledging
+the House in the ensuing session to enter on the consideration of
+the subject. Accordingly, May 12, 1789, Mr. Wilberforce moved a
+series of resolutions, founded on a report of the Privy Council,
+exposing the iniquity and cruelty of the traffic in slaves, the
+mortality which it occasioned among white as well as black men, and
+the neglect of health and morals by which the natural increase of
+the race in the West India islands was checked; and concluding with
+a declaration that if the causes by which that increase was checked
+were removed, no considerable inconvenience would result from
+discontinuing the importation of African slaves. Burke, Pitt, and
+Fox supported the resolutions. Mr. Wilberforce's speech was
+distinguished by eloquence and earnestness, and by its unanswerable
+appeals to the first principles of justice and religion. The
+consideration of the subject was ultimately adjourned to the
+following session. In that, and in two subsequent sessions, the
+motions were renewed; and the effect of pressing such a subject upon
+the attention of the country was to open the eyes of many who would
+willingly have kept them closed, yet could not deny the existence of
+the evils so forced on their view. In 1792 Mr. Wilberforce's motion
+for the abolition of the slave trade was met by a proposal to insert
+in it the word "gradually;" and, in pursuance of the same policy,
+Mr. Dundas introduced a bill to provide for its discontinuance in
+1800. The date was altered to 1796, and in that state the bill
+passed the Commons, but was stopped in the Upper House by a proposal
+to hear evidence upon it. Mr. Wilberforce annually renewed his
+efforts, and brought every new argument to bear upon the question
+which new discoveries, or the events of the times, produced. In 1799
+the friends of the measure resolved on letting it repose for awhile,
+and for five years Mr. Wilberforce contented himself with moving for
+certain papers; but he took an opportunity of assuring the House
+that he had not grown cool in the cause, and that he would renew the
+discussion in a future session. On May 30, 1804, he once more moved
+for leave to bring in his bill for the abolition of the slave trade,
+in a speech of great eloquence and effect. He took the opportunity
+of making a powerful appeal to the Irish members, before whom, in
+consequence of the Union, this question was now for the first time
+brought, and the greater part of whom supported it. The decision
+showed a majority of 124 to 49 in his favor; and the bill was
+carried through the Commons, but was again postponed in the House of
+Lords. In 1805 he renewed his motion; but on this occasion it was
+lost in the Commons by over-security among the friends of the
+measure. But when Mr. Fox and Lord Granville took office in 1806,
+the abolition was brought forward by the ministers, most of whom
+supported it, though it was not made a government question in
+consequence of several members of the cabinet opposing it. The
+attorney-general (Sir A. Pigott) brought in a bill, which was passed
+into a law, prohibiting the slave trade in the conquered colonies,
+and excluding British subjects from engaging in the foreign slave
+trade; and Mr. Fox at Mr. Wilberforce's special request, introduced
+a resolution pledging the House to take the earliest measures for
+effectually abolishing the whole slave trade. This resolution was
+carried by a majority of 114 to 15; and January 2, 1807, Lord
+Granville brought forward, in the House of Lords, a bill for the
+abolition of the slave trade, which passed safely through both
+Houses of Parliament. As, however, the king was believed to be
+unfriendly to the measure, some alarm was felt by its friends, lest
+its fate might still be affected by the dismissal of the ministers,
+which had been determined upon. Those fears were groundless; for
+though they received orders to deliver up the seals of their offices
+on March 25th, the royal assent was given by commission by the Lord
+Chancellor Erskine on the same day; and thus the last act of the
+administration was to conclude a contest, maintained by prejudice
+and interest during twenty years, for the support of what Mr. Pitt
+denominated "the greatest practical evil that ever afflicted the
+human race."
+
+Among other testimonies to Mr. Wilberforce's merits, we are not
+inclined to omit that of Sir James Mackintosh, who in his journal,
+May 23, 1808, speaks thus of Wilberforce on the "Abolition." This
+refers to a pamphlet on the slave trade which Mr. Wilberforce had
+published in 1806: "Almost as much enchanted by Mr. Wilberforce's
+book as by his conduct. He is the very model of a reformer. Ardent
+without turbulence, mild without timidity or coolness; neither
+yielding to difficulties nor disturbed or exasperated by them;
+patient and meek yet intrepid; persisting for twenty years through
+good report and evil report; just and charitable even to his most
+malignant enemies; unwearied in every experiment to disarm the
+prejudices of his more rational and disinterested opponents, and
+supporting the zeal, without dangerously exciting the passions of
+his adherents."
+
+The rest of Mr. Wilberforce's parliamentary conduct was consistent
+with his behavior on this question. In debates chiefly political he
+rarely took a forward part; but where religion and morals were
+directly concerned, points on which few cared to interfere, and
+where a leader was wanted, he never shrunk from the advocacy of his
+opinions. He was a supporter of Catholic emancipation and
+parliamentary reform; he condemned the encouragement of gambling, in
+the shape of lotteries established by government; he insisted on the
+cruelty of employing boys of tender age as chimney-sweepers; he
+attempted to procure a legislative enactment against duelling, after
+the hostile meeting between Pitt and Tierney; and on the renewal of
+the East India Company's charter in 1816, he gave his zealous
+support to the propagation of Christianity in Hindostan, in
+opposition to those who, as has been more recently done in the West
+Indies, represented the employment of missionaries to be
+inconsistent with the preservation of the British empire. It is
+encouraging to observe that, with the exception of the one levelled
+against duelling, all these measures, however violently opposed and
+unfairly censured, have been carried in a more or less perfect form.
+
+As an author, Mr. Wilberforce's claim to notice is chiefly derived
+from his treatise entitled "A Practical View of the Prevailing
+Religious System of Professing Christians in the Higher and Middle
+Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity." The
+object of it was to show that the standard of life generally adopted
+by those classes not only fell short of, but was inconsistent with,
+the doctrines of the gospel. It has justly been applauded as a work
+of no common courage, not from the asperity of its censures, for it
+breathes throughout a spirit of gentleness and love, but on the
+joint consideration of the unpopularity of the subject and the
+writer's position. The Bishop of Calcutta, in his introductory
+essay, justly observes that "the author, in attempting it, risked
+everything dear to a public man and a politician as such,
+consideration, weight, ambition, reputation." And Scott, the divine,
+one of the most fearless and ardent of men, viewed the matter in the
+same light; for he wrote: "Taken in all its probable effects, I do
+sincerely think such a stand for vital Christianity has not been
+made in my memory. He has come out beyond my expectations." Of a
+work so generally known we shall not describe the tendency more at
+large. It is said to have gone through about twenty editions in
+Britain, since the publication in 1797, and more in America; and to
+have been translated into most European languages.
+
+In the discharge of his parliamentary duties, Mr. Wilberforce was
+punctual and active beyond his apparent strength; and those who
+further recollect his diligent attendance on a vast variety of
+public meetings and committees connected with religious and
+charitable purposes, will wonder how a frame naturally weak should
+so long have endured the wear of such exertion. In 1788, when his
+illness was a matter of deep concern to the Abolitionists, Dr.
+Warren said that he had not stamina to last a fortnight. No doubt
+his bodily powers were greatly aided by the placid and happy frame
+of mind which he habitually enjoyed; but it is important to relate
+his own opinion, as delivered by an ear-witness, on the physical
+benefits which he derived from a strict abstinence from temporal
+affairs on Sundays: "I have often heard him assert that he never
+could have sustained the labor and stretch of mind required in his
+early political life, if it had not been for the rest of his
+Sabbath; and that he could name several of his contemporaries in the
+vortex of political cares, whose minds had actually given way under
+the stress of intellectual labor so as to bring on a premature death
+or the still more dreadful catastrophe of insanity and suicide, who,
+humanly speaking, might have been preserved in health, if they would
+but conscientiously have observed the Sabbath."
+
+In 1797 Mr. Wilberforce married Miss Spooner, daughter of an eminent
+banker at Birmingham. Four sons survived him. He died, after a
+gradual decline, July 29, 1833, in Cadogan Place. He directed that
+his funeral should be conducted without the smallest pomp; but his
+orders were disregarded, in compliance with a memorial addressed to
+his relatives by many of the most distinguished men of all parties,
+and couched in the following terms: "We, the undersigned Members of
+both Houses of Parliament, being anxious, upon public grounds, to
+show our respect for the memory of the late William Wilberforce, and
+being also satisfied that public honors can never be more fitly
+bestowed than upon such benefactors of mankind, earnestly request
+that he may be buried in Westminster Abbey, and that we and others
+who may agree with us in these sentiments may have permission to
+attend his funeral." The attendance of both Houses was numerous. Mr.
+Wilberforce was interred within a few yards of his great
+contemporaries, Pitt, Fox, and Canning.
+
+
+
+
+SIR HUMPHRY DAVY
+
+By JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A.
+
+(1778-1829)
+
+[Illustration: Sir Humphry Davy.]
+
+
+The boyhood of Davy has been sketched in some of the most
+fascinating pieces of biography ever written: the annals of science
+do not furnish us with any record that equals the school-days and
+self-education of the boy, Humphry, in popular interest; and, unlike
+many bright mornings, this commencement in a few years led to a
+brilliant meridian, and, by a succession of discoveries,
+accomplished more in relation to change of theory and extension of
+science, than in the most ardent and ambitious moments of youth he
+could either hope to effect or imagine possible.
+
+Humphry Davy was born at Penzance, in 1778; was a healthy, strong,
+and active child, and could speak fluently before he was two years
+old; copied engravings before he learned to write, and could recite
+part of the "Pilgrim's Progress" before he could well read it. At
+the age of five years, he could gain a good account of the contents
+of a book while turning over the leaves; and he retained this
+remarkable faculty through life. He excelled in telling stories to
+his playmates; loved fishing, and collecting, and painting birds and
+fishes; he had his own little garden; and recorded his impressions
+of romantic scenery in verse of no ordinary merit. To his
+self-education, however, he owed almost everything. He studied with
+intensity mathematics, metaphysics, and physiology; before he was
+nineteen he began to study chemistry, and in four months proposed a
+new hypothesis on heat and light, to which he won over the
+experienced Dr. Beddoes. With his associate, Gregory Watt (son of
+the celebrated James Watt) he collected specimens of rocks and
+minerals. He made considerable progress in medicine; he experimented
+zealously, especially on the effects of the gases in respiration; at
+the age of twenty-one he had breathed nitrous oxide, and nearly lost
+his life from breathing carburetted hydrogen. Next year he commenced
+the galvanic experiments which led to some of his greatest
+discoveries. In 1802 he began his brilliant scientific career at the
+Royal Institution, where he remained till 1812; here he constructed
+his great voltaic battery of 2,000 double plates of copper and zinc,
+and commenced the mineralogical collection now in the Museum. His
+lectures were often attended by one thousand persons: his youth, his
+simplicity, his natural eloquence, his chemical knowledge, his happy
+illustrations and well-conducted experiments, and the auspicious
+state of science, insured Davy great and instant success.
+
+The enthusiastic admiration with which he was hailed can hardly be
+imagined now. Not only men of the highest rank--men of science, men of
+letters, and men of trade--but women of fashion and blue-stockings,
+old and young, pressed into the theatre of the Institution to cover
+him with applause. His greatest labors were his discovery of the
+decomposition of the fixed alkalies, and the re-establishment of the
+simple nature of chlorine; his other researches were the investigation
+of astringent vegetables in connection with the art of tanning; the
+analysis of rocks and minerals in connection with geology; the
+comprehensive subject of agricultural chemistry; and galvanism and
+electro-chemical science. He was also an early, but unsuccessful,
+experimenter in the photographic art.
+
+Of the lazy conservative spirit and ludicrous indolence in science,
+which at this time attempted to hoodwink the public, a quaint
+instance is recorded of a worthy professor of chemistry at Aberdeen.
+He had allowed some years to pass since Davy's brilliant discovery
+of potassium and its congeneric metals, without a word about them in
+his lectures. At length the learned doctor was concussed by his
+colleagues on the subject, and he condescended to notice it. "Both
+potash and soda are now said to be metallic oxides," said he; "the
+oxides, in fact, of two metals, called potassium and sodium by the
+discoverer of them, one Davy, in London, a verra troublesome person
+in chemistry."
+
+Turn we, however, to the brightest event in our chemical
+philosopher's career. By his unrivalled series of practical
+discoveries, Davy acquired such a reputation for success among his
+countrymen, that his aid was invoked on every great occasion. The
+properties of fire-damp, or carburetted hydrogen, in coal-mines had
+already been ascertained by Dr. Henry. When this gas is mingled in
+certain proportions with atmospheric air, it forms a mixture which
+kindles upon the contact of a lighted candle, and often explodes
+with tremendous violence, killing the men and horses, and projecting
+much of the contents of the mine through the shafts or apertures
+like an enormous piece of artillery. At this time, a detonation of
+fire-damp occurred within a coal-mine in the north of England, so
+dreadful that it destroyed more than a hundred miners. A committee
+of the proprietors besought our chemist to provide a method of
+preparing for such tremendous visitations; and he did it. He tells
+us that he first turned his attention particularly to the subject in
+1815; but he must have been prepared for it by the researches of his
+early years. Still, there appeared little hope of finding an
+efficacious remedy. The resources of modern mechanical science had
+been fully applied in ventilation. The comparative lightness of
+fire-damp was well understood; every precaution was taken to
+preserve the communications open; and the currents of air were
+promoted or occasioned, not only by furnaces, but likewise by
+air-pumps and steam apparatus. We may here mention that, for giving
+light to the coal-miner or pitman, where the fire-damp was
+apprehended, the primitive contrivance was a steel-mill, the light
+of which was produced by contact of a flint with the edge of a wheel
+kept in rapid motion. A "safety-lamp" had already, in 1813, been
+constructed by Dr. Clanny, the principle of which was forcing in air
+through water by bellows; but the machine was ponderous and
+complicated, and required a boy to work it. M. Humboldt had
+previously, in 1796, constructed a lamp for mines upon the same
+principle as that of Dr. Clanny.
+
+Davy, having conceived that flame and explosion may be regulated and
+arrested, began a minute chemical examination of fire-damp. He found
+that carburetted-hydrogen gas, even when mixed with fourteen times
+its bulk of atmospheric air, was still explosive. He ascertained
+that explosions of inflammable gases were incapable of being passed
+through long, narrow metallic tubes; and that this principle of
+security was still obtained by diminishing their length and diameter
+at the same time, and likewise diminishing their length and
+increasing their number, so that a great number of small apertures
+would not pass explosion when their depth was equal to their
+diameter. This fact led to trials upon sieves of wire-gauze; he
+found that if a piece of wire-gauze was held over the flame of a
+lamp, or coal-gas, it prevented the flame from passing; and he
+ascertained that a flame confined in a cylinder of very fine
+wire-gauze did not explode even in a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen,
+but that the gases burned in it with great vivacity. These
+experiments served as the basis of the safety-lamp.
+
+Sir Humphry Davy presented his first communication respecting his
+discovery of the safety-lamp to the Royal Society in 1815. This was
+followed by a series of papers, crowned by that read on January 11,
+1816, when the principle of the safety-lamp was announced, and Sir
+Humphry presented to the society a model made by his own hands,
+which is to this day preserved in the collection of the Royal
+Society at Burlington House.
+
+There have been several modifications of the safety-lamp, and the
+merit of the discovery has been claimed by others, among whom was
+Mr. George Stephenson; but the question was set at rest in 1817 by
+an examination, attested by Sir Joseph Banks, P.R.S., Mr. Brande,
+Mr. Hatchett, and Dr. Wollaston, and awarding the independent merit
+to Davy.
+
+It should be explained that Stephenson's lamp was formed on the
+principle of admitting the fire-damp by narrow tubes, and "in such
+small detached portions that it would be consumed by combustion."
+The two lamps were doubtless distinct inventions; though Davy, in
+all justice, appears to be entitled to precedence, not only in point
+of date, but as regards the long chain of inductive reasoning
+concerning the nature of flame by which his result was arrived at.
+
+Meanwhile, the Report by the Parliamentary Committee "cannot admit
+that the experiments (made with the lamp) have any tendency to
+detract from the character of Sir Humphry Davy, or to disparage the
+fair value placed by himself upon his invention. The improvements
+are probably those which longer life and additional facts would have
+induced him to contemplate as desirable, and of which, had he not
+been the inventor, he might have become the patron."
+
+"I value it," Davy used to say, with the kindliest exultation, "more
+than anything I ever did; it was the result of a great deal of
+investigation and labor; but if my directions be attended to, it
+will save the lives of thousands of poor men."
+
+The principle of the invention may be thus summed up: In the
+safety-lamp, the mixture of the fire-damp and atmospheric air within
+the cage of wire-gauze explodes upon coming in contact with the
+flame; but the combustion cannot pass through the wire-gauze; and
+being there imprisoned, cannot impart to the explosive atmosphere of
+the mine any of its force. This effect has been attributed to the
+cooling influence of the metal; but, since the wires may be brought
+to a degree of heat but little below redness without igniting the
+fire-damp, this does not appear to be the cause.
+
+Professor Playfair has elegantly characterized the safety-lamp of
+Davy as a present from philosophy to the arts, a discovery in no
+degree the effect of accident or chance, but the result of patient
+and enlightened research, and strongly exemplifying the great use of
+an immediate and constant appeal to experiment. After characterizing
+the invention as the _shutting-up in a net of the most slender
+texture_ of a most violent and irresistible force, and a power that
+in its tremendous effects seems to emulate the lightning and the
+earthquake, Professor Playfair thus concludes: "When to this we add
+the beneficial consequences, and the saving of the lives of men, and
+consider that the effects are to remain as long as coal continues to
+be dug from the bowels of the earth, it may be fairly said that
+there is hardly in the whole compass of art or science a single
+invention of which one would rather wish to be the author.... This,"
+says Professor Playfair, "is exactly such a case as we should choose
+to place before Bacon, were he to revisit the earth; in order to
+give him, in a small compass, an idea of the advancement which
+philosophy has made since the time when he had pointed out to her
+the route which she ought to pursue."
+
+Honors were showered upon Davy. He received from the Royal Society
+the Copley, Royal, and Rumford Medals, and several times delivered
+the Bakerian Lecture. He also received Napoleon's prize for the
+advancement of galvanic researches from the French Institute. The
+invention of the safety-lamp brought him the public gratitude of the
+united colliers of Whitehaven, of the coal proprietors of the north
+of England, of the grand jury of Durham, of the Chamber of Commerce
+at Mons, of the coal-miners of Flanders, and, above all, of the
+coal-owners of the Wear and the Tyne, who presented him (it was his
+own choice) with a dinner-service of silver worth L2,500. On the
+same occasion, Alexander, the Emperor of all the Russias, sent him a
+vase, with a letter of commendation. In 1817, he was elected to the
+dignity of an associate of the Institute of France; next year, at
+the age of forty, he was created a baronet.
+
+Davy's discoveries form a remarkable epoch in the history of the
+Royal Society during the early part of this century; and from 1821
+to 1829 almost every volume of the _Transactions_ contains a
+communication by him. He was president of the Royal Society from
+1820 to 1827.
+
+Fond of travel, geology, and sport, Davy visited, for the purpose of
+mineralogy and angling, almost every county of England and Wales. He
+was provided with a portable laboratory, that he might experiment
+when he chose, as well as fish and shoot. In 1827, upon resigning
+the presidency of the Royal Society, he retired to the continent; in
+1829, at Geneva, his palsy-stricken body returned to the dust. They
+buried him at Geneva, where a simple monument stands at the head of
+the hospitable grave. There is a tablet to his memory in Westminster
+Abbey; there is a monument at Penzance; and his widow founded a
+memorial chemical prize in the University of Geneva. His public
+services of plate, his imperial vases, his foreign prizes, his royal
+medals, shall be handed down with triumph to his collateral
+posterity as trophies won from the depths of nescience; but his
+work, designed by his own genius, executed by his own hand, tracery
+and all, and every single stone signalized by his own private mark,
+indelible, characteristic, and inimitable--his work is the only
+record of his name. How deeply are its foundations rooted in space,
+and how lasting its materials for time!
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL SAN MARTIN[9]
+
+         [Footnote 9: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH
+
+(1778-1850)
+
+    "Seras lo que debes ser,
+  Y sino, no seras nada."
+            SAN MARTIN.
+
+
+San Martin, the ideal liberator of South America from the long and
+tyrannical rule of Spanish viceroys, was one of the most remarkable
+men of his own or of any age. From a moral point of view he stands
+in the first rank of the world's heroes. "He was not a man," said a
+student of South American history, "he was a mission." Cincinnatus,
+after serving the state, returned to the plough, and Washington to
+the retirement of Mt. Vernon; but San Martin for the peace of his
+country went into voluntary exile. His country crowned him dead and
+made for his dead body a tomb of Peace, surrounded by the marble
+angels of the arts of human progress, more beautiful in its meaning
+than any tomb on the Appian Way, and one of the most wonderful
+memorials on earth.
+
+The Battle of Maipu, of which San Martin was the victor, completed
+the emancipation of South America, and made the achievements of
+Bolivar easy in the Northern Andes. Said the hero of Maipu--and what
+words of man under the circumstances ever equalled the declaration
+in moral sublimity!--
+
+"The presence of a fortunate general, however disinterested he may
+be, is dangerous to a newly founded state. I have achieved the
+independence of Peru: I have ceased to be a public man!" He died at
+Boulogne, France, in poverty, after nearly thirty years of exiled
+and fameless life. His career seems like that of some hero of
+fiction, such as the imagination of a Plato, a Bacon, or a Sir
+Thomas More might create for an Utopia. He is the one perfectly
+unselfish man in history, and his fame has grown steadily in Spanish
+America, since Argentina built a tomb-palace for his remains, and
+decreed for him one of the most splendid funerals ever known to the
+Western World.
+
+General Don Joachim de la Pezuela, the last Spanish ruler of Peru,
+was the forty-fourth viceroy from Pizarro. "The Indians," he said,
+"love the memory of the Incas--the country is ready to rise." The
+banner of Argentina was putting to flight the condors of the Andes,
+and the last viceroy saw in its advance the end of Spain in the New
+World.
+
+The Argentine hero who had created the army of the Andes for
+universal liberty was San Martin. He was born on February 25, 1778,
+at Yapeyu, in Misiones. His father was a South American officer
+under the last rule of the viceroys. The family removed to Spain in
+his boyhood, and he became for two years a pupil in the Seminary of
+Nobles, at Madrid. At the age of twelve he became a cadet, wearing a
+uniform of blue and white, which he made in manhood the colors of
+South American emancipation.
+
+He fought in the war against the Moors, and in the campaign against
+France, in 1793. In 1800 he took part in the so-called "War of the
+Oranges against Portugal."
+
+In the early part of the nineteenth century there began to be formed
+in Spain secret societies for the purpose of advancing the cause of
+liberty and human progress. One of these associations, called
+_Caballeros Racionales_, became very influential, and corresponded
+with the society of the Grand Reunion of America (_Gran Reunion
+Americana_) of London. This society was pledged "to recognize no
+government in America as legitimate unless it was elected by the
+free will of the people." San Martin joined this society. The London
+society was established by Miranda, the Spanish patriot, a friend of
+Bolivar, by whose inspirations San Martin became a disciple of
+liberty, and whose dreams he fulfilled long after the patriot was
+dead.
+
+San Martin won honors and a medal in the Spanish resistance to the
+victorious eagles of Napoleon. In that campaign he fought under a
+banner of the Sun, having this motto in Latin: "We bear this aloft
+dispersing the clouds." He made this banner the flag of the army of
+the Andes.
+
+In 1812, San Martin, as a disciple of the principles of the Spanish
+apostle of liberty, Miranda, returned to South America, and in March
+went to Buenos Ayres, and offered his sword to the Argentine
+patriots for the cause of independence. The country was in
+revolution against the Spanish rule. San Martin was not only an
+American, but a Creole; he was unselfish, truthful, the soul of
+honor, and of all men in the world the one that would seem best
+fitted to lead the cause of the South American patriots. He was
+destined to become "the greatest of the Creoles of the New World."
+
+Soon after the arrival of San Martin in Buenos Ayres he married Dona
+Remedios Esculada, and Mercedes, a daughter of this marriage, shared
+with him his voluntary exile after the conquest of Peru.
+
+Appointed at once to a high military position under the Argentine
+Government, he conceived the plan of creating an army of the Andes,
+of crossing the Cordillera, and of driving the Spaniards from Chile.
+
+Mendoza, with which Buenos Ayres is now connected by railroad, lies
+on an elevation under the snowy Cordilleras. San Martin made his
+military camp here. On January 17, 1817, he began his march up the
+Andes, one of the most perilous achievements of modern warfare. The
+summit of the Uspallata Pass, over which the army was to climb, is
+12,500 feet above the level of the sea, or 4,000 feet higher than
+the Pass of St. Bernard.
+
+The 17th, on which the army set forth, was a high holiday in
+Mendoza. The plaza was gay with banners, and the streets with
+patriotic decorations. The ladies of the city presented an
+embroidered flag to San Martin. The general, above whose head
+gleamed the snowy heights of the Andes, ascended a platform in the
+plaza, and waved this flag over his head, and shouted:
+
+"Soldiers, behold the first flag of independence!"
+
+There arose a great shout of "Viva la Patria!"
+
+"Soldiers, swear to sustain it."
+
+"We swear," answered the army, as one man.
+
+Salvos of musketry and artillery followed. Mitre, in his "Life of
+San Martin," as presented to us in the condensed translation of
+Pilling, eloquently says that this flag rose "for the redemption of
+one-half of South America, passed the Cordilleras, waved in triumph
+along the Pacific coast, floated over the foundations of two new
+republics, aided in the liberation of another, and after sixty-four
+years served as a funeral pall to the body of the hero, who thus
+delivered it to the care of the immortal Army of the Andes."
+
+The mountains rose above the departing army, piercing the sky in the
+fading day. Up they climbed, putting to flight the condors. The men
+suffered greatly from the rarefaction of the air. Even many of the
+animals of the expedition perished. Out of 9,261 mules, only 4,300
+ever reached Chile.
+
+"What spoils my sleep," said San Martin, on surveying the Andes at
+the outset of the expedition, "is not the strength of the enemy, but
+how to pass those immense mountains." He might well say that, for
+before him gleamed peaks 21,000 feet high.
+
+The army, with all its sufferings, triumphantly crossed the lower
+passes of the Cordilleras, and entered Chile. This march decided the
+fate of South America.
+
+The army encamped upon the Sierra of Chacubuco, from the summit of
+which the whole of the magnificent country could be seen. Here rose
+the flag of liberation. The flower of the Spanish army, inferior in
+numbers, was near. On February 12th a battle was fought, and the
+royalists were defeated with a loss of 500 men killed, 600 taken
+prisoners, and all of their artillery.
+
+The way was now open to Santiago, the capital. The army entered the
+city amid the acclamations of the people. The Chilian assembly met
+and offered San Martin the office of governor, with dictatorial
+power. But San Martin was not fighting for power, or honor, but for
+the liberties of his countrymen, and he nobly declined the office.
+
+The guns of Buenos Ayres roared, and the city was turned into a
+festival when the news of the triumph of the army of the Andes
+reached the coast. The Argentine Government offered to bestow on San
+Martin its highest honors, but the latter declined them, lest his
+work should be retarded and his motives of life should be
+misconstrued. It awarded to his daughter a life pension, which he
+devoted to her education.
+
+Santiago offered to him 10,000 ounces of gold. He refused the
+splendid purse which he had so well won, but recommended that the
+money be used for the cause of popular education in the form of a
+public library.
+
+Chile and Argentina now formed an alliance in defence of their
+liberties.
+
+But the royal army was gathering force and unity. On March 31st, it
+numbered 5,500 men, and was prepared to make a final stand against
+the army of liberation.
+
+There is a river in Chile which divides the country, named the
+Maipo, or Maipu. On its banks the royal army encamped on the first
+days of April, 1818. The patriot army was close at hand, and each
+army felt that the battle to follow would decide the fate of the
+movement for the independence of the South American empire.
+
+It is April 5, 1818. The royal army is ready for action, and the
+patriots occupy the heights of Loma Blanca, overlooking the plains
+of the Maipu.
+
+"Do not await a charge to-day," ordered San Martin; "_but charge_
+always within fifty paces!"
+
+At the beginning of the action he said,
+
+"I take the sun to witness that the day is ours."
+
+Just then the sun, which had been clouded, shone from the heavens.
+
+The royal army was defeated. That night of May 5th covered their
+flight, and the War of Independence was won.
+
+San Martin began now to plan the liberation of Peru, and to create a
+navy for the purpose of commanding the ports of the golden mountains
+and rich plateaus of the incarial realms.
+
+In August, 1820, he had gathered a patriot force of 4,500 men at
+Valparaiso, and was ready to embark for the conquest by sea. The
+army was composed of Argentines and Chilians. A former expedition
+had made the way of victory clear to the patriots. The fleet left
+Valparaiso August 21, 1820. The army landed in Peru and began
+operations near Lima.
+
+San Martin began his Chilian campaign by the liberation of the
+slaves, whom he afterward found trusty soldiers. He began the
+Peruvian war by issuing a most noble manifesto to his countrymen, in
+which he said: "Ever since I came back to my native land, the
+independence of Peru has been present in my mind."
+
+And again he grandly announced his future policy in nearly these
+words: "From the time that a government is established by the people
+of Peru, the army of the Andes will obey its orders."
+
+The army of liberation was as successful in Peru as in Chile. The
+empire of the viceroys crumbled and fell. Amid the roar of cannon,
+the shouts of the people, and strewing of flowers, the independence
+of Peru was proclaimed on July 20, 1821, in the great square of
+Lima. San Martin, as in Chile, was offered the supreme authority
+under the title of the Protector of Peru. He made use of the office
+merely for the pacification of the country. He convened the first
+Congress in Peru, and to the new government he addressed the words,
+or words like those, that we have quoted at the beginning of this
+article. He saw that Bolivar was the man to complete the liberation
+and bring about the unity of South America. The cause was all to
+him: he was nothing.
+
+To Bolivar he wrote: "My decision is irrevocable. I have convened
+the first Congress of Peru. The day of its installation I shall
+leave for Chile, convinced that my presence is the only obstacle
+that prevents you from coming to Peru."
+
+He sent to Bolivar a parting gift, saying, "Receive this memento
+from the first of your admirers, and with my desire that you have
+the glory of finishing the war for the independence of South
+America."
+
+The history of chivalry has no match for the character of San
+Martin. Bolivar united patriotism and vanity; San Martin's glory was
+self-abnegation. At a banquet where the two were present, Bolivar
+once offered the following toast: "To the two greatest men in South
+America--San Martin and _myself_."
+
+San Martin followed with his toast. "To the speedy end of the war;
+to the establishment of the republics, and to the health of the
+Liberator of Colombia!"
+
+The two toasts were photographs. Time is lifting the character of
+San Martin into its true place among glorious men. He was a man who
+fought for peace. His life fulfilled his own motto: "Thou shalt be
+what thou oughtest to be, or else thou shalt be nothing."
+
+On critical occasions, his magnanimous soul rose to the sublimity of
+this motto, and to the end of his life of glory and poverty he was
+always able to say, "I have been what I ought!"
+
+[Signature: Hezekiah Butterworth.]
+
+
+
+
+GEORGE STEPHENSON[10]
+
+         [Footnote 10: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By Professor C. M. WOODWARD
+
+(1781-1848)
+
+[Illustration: Steam engine.]
+
+
+Far in the north of England, near the Scottish border, by the shore
+of the German Ocean, is the county of brown and barren hills called
+Northumberland, and its principal city, Newcastle, famous for its
+coal. There is another Newcastle near the centre of England, so this
+one is often distinguished by the name "Newcastle-on-Tyne"--Tyne
+being the blackest and dirtiest of all rivers.
+
+A few miles from Newcastle, up the Tyne, is the little mining
+village of Wylam, where, a hundred years ago, lived Robert
+Stephenson and his wife Mabel. There was no style about Wylam, and
+few evidences of wealth or culture. The houses straggled about near
+the outlets of the coal-mines, and everything was as uninviting as
+it well could be. Stephenson's house, or rather "shanty," had but
+one room, and that had an earthen floor. Robert and Mabel were about
+as ill-furnished as their house; for neither could read, they had
+not a book nor a print, and neither knew much more of the world than
+could be seen, as they stood on the bank of the Tyne and looked
+about on the neighboring hills and down toward Newcastle. In 1892 I
+rode down the valley of the Tyne, past Wylam, through Newcastle, and
+over the high bridge that our fireman's grandson, Robert, built in
+later days. Few valleys are less attractive, and few seem less
+likely to be the birthplace of epoch-making men.
+
+Robert Stephenson, the father of our hero, was a fireman, earning
+two shillings a day. He was sober and industrious, but as would be
+expected, he never "got on." He was a good story-teller, and
+transmitted to his children healthy bodies and clear heads. George
+was the second of six children, and he was born June 9, 1781, during
+our war for independence. His boyhood was uneventful enough. When
+the weather was cold he was cooped up in their narrow home; he was
+out of doors whenever the weather would permit. He played in the
+street, ran errands, carried his father's dinner, and herded cows,
+as soon as he was big enough, for four cents per day. At fourteen he
+was assistant-fireman, earning twenty-five cents a day, and at
+seventeen he was "plugman." He was thus in contact with much that
+had been achieved in the way of building engines and transporting
+materials on cars. But I must describe the engines then in use, and
+explain what it was to be a "plugman."
+
+The coal-mines were so deep that, in spite of the valleys, they
+could be drained only by pumps, and it was often more difficult to
+keep the water out than it was to lift the coal out. The
+steam-engine was then in a very incomplete condition, and both
+pumping-and lifting-engines were crude and clumsy affairs. To be
+sure Watt, the mathematical instrument-maker, had invented the
+double-acting steam-engine, but few had been manufactured, and those
+in common use were "atmospheric" engines, known as "Newcomen's"
+engines. A pumping-engine had a long, vertical cylinder, with
+arrangements for admitting steam at the top. The weight of the
+piston, piston-rod, and pump-rod, which ran down a shaft to the
+lowest point in the mine, being balanced by a counter-weight on a
+sort of well-sweep, the steam, admitted by hand, forced the piston
+to the bottom of the cylinder. The steam was then shut off, and a
+spray of water was turned on within the cylinder. This water
+condensed the steam and reduced the pressure within to almost
+nothing, so that the air pressure on the exterior face of the piston
+(which amounted to over a ton for every square foot of surface)
+drove the piston to the top of the cylinder, and lifted the full
+length of the stroke a large quantity of water.
+
+It is evident that the office of engineer was not an easy one. It
+was all he could do to take care of the steam end of the pump;
+another man was needed to look after the lower end, where the
+pump-valve worked in another vertical cylinder. The water entered
+this cylinder through holes in the sides, some higher, some lower,
+according to the stage of water in the mine. The pumps did not run
+continuously, but they lowered the water to the bottom as often as
+it was necessary. As the level of the water in the mine fell, it was
+necessary to plug the upper holes in the pump cylinder; the man who
+watched the lower end and plugged those holes was known as the
+"plugman." It is difficult to conceive of a less inspiring
+occupation than that to which George Stephenson was promoted at the
+age of seventeen. Alone in the dark, chilled by the damp air, and
+wet by the black water, he was forced, by lack of other occupation,
+to note every mechanical detail of the machinery, and to study
+methods of improving it.
+
+At the age of eighteen he heard of some wonderful engines made by
+Watt & Boulton, at their new factory, and was told that the engines
+were fully described and illustrated in books. So he determined to
+learn to read. He was encouraged in this resolve by stories that a
+French soldier, by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, was sweeping
+everything before him on the continent of Europe, and that he was
+planning the subjugation of Great Britain. Information about
+Napoleon could be gained from printed newspapers if one could only
+read.
+
+But where should he learn? There was no public school in Wylam; none
+of our hero's companions went to school; none of the people he
+associated with could read or write. However, he found a teacher in
+a young man by the name of Robert Cowens, of whom he took three
+lessons per week in the evening. He earned money for books and
+instruction by mending shoes and repairing clocks. He was handy with
+tools, and quick at seeing the relations of things. As soon as he
+could read and write he learned to cipher, taking a slateful of
+"sums," set by his teacher, to his work in the morning, to be "done"
+during odd moments while watching his pump or engine, for he was
+soon advanced to the care of the steam end of the machine.
+
+While young Stephenson, now grown a man, is thus busy with his
+primer, his copy-book, and "four rules," let us reflect upon the
+uncanny circumstances of his early life. He had no luxuries, few
+real comforts. The people around him lived half the time underground
+in mines that were dark, damp, and dangerous--in constant war with
+water and a poisonous, explosive, natural gas, known as "fire-damp."
+Above ground there was little that was attractive or educative. The
+young men had their games, at which George was fairly successful,
+for he was strong and active. The ale-house stood near by, and it
+absorbed most of the spare time and scant earnings of the miners;
+but it is said that young Stephenson avoided the saloon, and was
+never known to leave his work for a drink of liquor. On off days he
+took his engine to pieces, examined its parts and the functions of
+each, and remedied small defects and devised improvements. Naturally
+clear-headed and ingenious, every circumstance tended to develop his
+executive powers. He soon was known in the Tyne valley as a good
+engine-doctor.
+
+An incident, when he was about twenty years of age, did much to
+shape his career. He heard that a neighboring mine had been flooded
+on account of the inability of the engine to pump fast enough. No
+engineer could make the engine efficient. One Sunday he went down
+and looked at it. After a thorough examination he said he could make
+it work in a week's time if he could have authority to make changes
+as he saw fit. Authority was given him. In four days the engine was
+repaired and set to work. In spite of jeers from old engine-men, who
+were jealous of a mere boy, the pump worked well and the mine was
+soon dry. George's reputation was made, and he soon received
+appointment as engineer at a large mine at Killingworth, an
+important place near by.
+
+Meanwhile Stephenson added exact instrumental drawing to his three
+R's. He found, as every artisan finds, that exact drawing is
+necessary not only to the study of existing mechanical devices, but
+particularly to the successful design of new parts. The successful
+inventor generally invents at his drawing-board.
+
+When twenty-one years of age Stephenson married Fanny Henderson, a
+respectable country girl living at Ballast Hill. He brought the
+bride home behind him on a pillion, a wedding journey of fifteen
+miles. Robert Stephenson, who became his father's partner, and one
+of the first of England's civil engineers, was born in 1803. In
+1812, when Stephenson was thirty-one years old, he was made
+engine-wright of a large colliery at Killingworth, at a salary of
+$500. The position was one of profit and fine opportunity. All the
+engines and machinery were in his hands, and all the repair-and
+construction-shops were available for such new designs as he saw fit
+to make. He at once set about making his first locomotive.
+
+Locomotives and railroads of certain sorts and fashions were already
+in existence, but they were rough and clumsy affairs.
+
+The rails were at first angle-irons, then flat bars of wrought iron,
+then cast-iron bars. In 1800 Benjamin Outram used stones for
+sleepers, and improved rails--hence "tramways." Over these tramways
+cars were drawn by horses, or by ropes from stationary engines.
+Murduck made a locomotive in 1784, and by 1812 several types of
+engines were used for hauling coal-cars. Stephenson saw one of
+Blenkinsop's engines. Gear-wheels connected the crank-shaft with the
+axles, and the driving-wheels were geared with the track, while of
+course, the coal-cars ran on different rails.
+
+This Blenkinsop's engine was a fearful machine. All the teeth
+rattled, and as there were no springs and the road was very uneven,
+the shocks were heavy and frequent, even though its speed was only
+four miles an hour.
+
+Stephenson's first engine, "My Lord," in honor of his patron, Lord
+Ravensworth, was finished in 1814. Some experiments on the friction
+of smooth wheels on iron rails led him to omit the teeth on the
+drivers, though everyone laughed at him, declaring that the engine
+would not run an "up grade," much less draw a load. His faith,
+however, resisted all arguments; it was based on experiments and
+careful calculations. Stephenson _knew_ that his engine would run up
+hill and draw a load, and it did so triumphantly.
+
+But the engine lacked steam. The boiler was small, and the fire was
+applied only on the exterior of the shell, and the draft was very
+poor, for the chimney was of necessity short. Only very low
+steam-pressure was possible, and little or no expansion was
+practicable. Consequently the exhaust was noisy and forcible.
+Stephenson turned it into the chimney and found that it increased
+the draft considerably; he at once thought that a steady jet of
+steam could be so directed as to make a strong draft even when the
+engine was not in motion. Thus the "blast" was invented, which about
+doubled the capacity of the machine.
+
+Stephenson's second locomotive, built in 1815, had no noisy gears,
+but instead, chain-belts to the driving-axles. It had, however, no
+springs, and the shocks were so great that only a low speed was
+possible. In 1816 he built locomotives with springs, some of which
+were in use for hauling coals for forty years.
+
+Meanwhile Robert was growing into a manly, useful lad. Knowing
+something of the value of education, both of the head and of the
+hand, his father determined that Robert should have the best of
+both. He was sent to Edinburgh for scientific culture, and when at
+home his father taught him drawing, mechanical processes, and the
+theory of machines as far as he was able--and his ability was
+considerable, for George Stephenson was more of a student than many
+whose early advantages were far better than his. The broad dual
+training given Robert appears to have been fully successful. Even
+before he became a man he was of great value to his father. Together
+they worked out plans for modifying and improving the locomotive and
+the road it was to run upon. He could soon draw and calculate better
+than his father, but he never excelled him in the solution of
+practical problems which depended upon a knowledge of materials and
+the simple laws of physics and mechanics.
+
+Thus far all railroads had been short, leading from mines to piers
+for shipping by water. The success of Stephenson's locomotive, the
+best working locomotive ever built at that time, led the
+proprietors of the Hetton Colliery, a few miles south of the Tyne
+valley, to propose a road, some eight miles long, over high hills
+and on steep grades. Stephenson planned and superintended the
+construction of the road as their engineer. There were several steep
+inclines where loaded cars going down drew empty cars up. There were
+two heavy stationary engines drawing cars by a rope, and five of
+Stephenson's locomotives for the easy grades. Each locomotive drew
+seventeen wagons, weighing about sixty-four tons, at the rate of
+four miles per hour. This was the best done as yet, and was
+considered a great success. It thoroughly established the reputation
+of George Stephenson as an engineer. This road was opened in 1822.
+
+Before the Hetton Railway was opened Stephenson was busy on a larger
+work. Parliament had given a franchise for a railway in Durham
+County, some twenty miles long, through Darlington to Stockton. The
+function of the road was to carry coal to a shipping pier, and it
+was not at all settled that horses would not be used to draw the
+cars. While not much was known about railways, and very little about
+locomotives, there was a growing conviction that there was great
+economy in the use of tramways and the steam-engine, and the
+prospect brightened for building the road.
+
+The charming biographer, Smiles, tells how George Stephenson called
+on Mr. Edward Pease, the president of the proposed railway, and
+offered his services in building and equipping the road. Mr. Pease
+was at once pleased with the man. "There was," said he later, "such
+an honest, sensible look about him, and he seemed so modest and
+unpretending. He spoke in the strong Northumbrian dialect, and
+described himself as 'only the engine-wright at Killingworth.'"
+
+Stephenson urged at once that the road be built for locomotives. Mr.
+Pease had never seen a locomotive at work, and had taken it for
+granted that horses would be used; but he went up to Killingworth
+and rode on the "Blucher" with Stephenson, while it hauled a train
+of loaded cars. Seeing was believing, and Mr. Pease was in favor of
+both Stephenson and his locomotive.
+
+So Stephenson was made chief engineer. He and his son Robert
+surveyed the line, changed the location, avoiding certain territory
+where people were hostile to a road of any sort, and built new and
+improved locomotives for the line. What we now call good tools were
+not to be had, and skilled workmen were not easy to find, but
+Stephenson made a great advance in the quality of the workmanship.
+
+The amended Act of Parliament gave the Stockton and Darlington line
+the right to carry passengers in cars drawn by locomotives. This was
+the first instance of such a grant. Stephenson met Mr. Pease in
+1821; the road was opened to the public in 1825. People came in
+crowds to see the locomotives and to ride on the _first public
+railway_. There had been bitter opposition to the road and a vast
+amount of incredulity as to the ability of the locomotives to do
+practical work.
+
+Imagine the excitement of the first ride. The train consisted of 6
+cars loaded with coal and other freight; then a short passenger
+coach filled with directors and friends; then 21 open cars or
+wagons fitted for excursionists; lastly came 6 more cars loaded with
+coal--making 38 cars in all!
+
+Mr. Stephenson was proud to be on the locomotive and to run it
+himself. It seemed to spectators incredible that the locomotive
+could start such a load, but it did start it, and it drew it 8-3/4
+miles in 65 minutes, the speed at times reaching 12 miles per hour!
+More cars were added at Darlington, and then the train drew on to
+Stockton, all cars being crowded with passengers.
+
+The success was complete, and all doubts seemed to vanish. From that
+day the traffic over the road continued without interruption. To the
+surprise of all, the passenger business became a very important
+item, and better cars were quickly in demand.
+
+The road is in use to-day, and I had the pleasure last year of
+riding over a part of it. Of course it now looks in all respects
+like a modern English road, but I was deeply moved by the thought
+that it was there that George Stephenson built his first public
+railway and achieved his first public triumph.
+
+Stephenson was not unmindful of the importance of that step. He
+said, on that occasion, to some young men, "Now, lads, I will tell
+you that I think you will live to see the day (though I may not live
+so long), when railways will come to supersede almost all other
+methods of conveyance--when mail coaches will go by railway. The
+time is coming when it will be cheaper for a working-man to ride
+than to go on foot." He lived to see all that himself, and far more.
+
+It is difficult for us to appreciate the popular surprise and
+delight at that first railway excursion. We are so accustomed to
+splendid engines, luxurious cars, and high speed, that we think
+nothing of them; but when all were new--when coaches and carts on
+highways were the sole reliance for passengers and freight--it was
+astonishing indeed to see a "travelling engine," in charge of two
+men, draw a train of forty cars and six hundred people!
+
+Many men would have been satisfied with the result, but Stephenson
+was not. He said there was no limit to the speed but the strength of
+the machinery and the supply of steam. He saw there was no limit to
+the load but the strength and weight of the locomotive, and no limit
+to the weight but the strength of the rails and the character of the
+road-bed; thus he early saw how progress was to be made.
+
+But Stephenson's greatest triumph was yet to come. The Darlington
+road was chiefly for coals, between small towns in a rough northern
+county. The vast majority of English people heard nothing, and knew
+nothing about it. Consequently when it was proposed to connect the
+great commercial city of Liverpool with the great manufacturing city
+of Manchester, forty miles away, by a railway, it was taken for
+granted that the cars were to be drawn by horses. Nevertheless a
+tram-road was opposed, first, by the Duke of Bridgewater, who had a
+canal between the two cities; and, secondly, by those who owned the
+coaches and the inns. Though proposed in 1821, the opposition was so
+great that it was laid over for several years. In 1824 a committee
+of interested parties went to Darlington and Killingworth to see
+Stephenson's road and locomotives. The Darlington line was not yet
+in operation, but the old locomotives were at work at Killingworth.
+The committee decided that they must have a double track for cars,
+whatever might be the motive power.
+
+Accordingly Stephenson was invited to make surveys and estimates, as
+he was said to be a man of great energy and the only man in England
+with the necessary experience.
+
+The surveys were made in 1825 with the greatest difficulty, on
+account of the opposition of landowners. The surveyors were ordered
+off the grounds, threatened with arrest and violence. Stephenson
+testified before a Parliamentary Committee that the duke's manager
+threatened to have him thrown into the mill-pond if he trespassed.
+Stephenson kept on as good terms as he could with the hostiles, and
+surveyed their grounds by stealth.
+
+The chief points of difficulty were a tunnel at Liverpool, and a
+vast and treacherous morass known as "Chat Moss."
+
+Early in 1825, before the Darlington road was opened, Parliament was
+considering the railway bill and Stephenson was called before the
+committee as a most important witness. All the opposition was out in
+force and every means was used to ridicule the undertaking and
+defeat the bill.
+
+The spectacle presented by plain, blunt, unlettered George
+Stephenson before the lawyers and members of the House of Commons
+was strange and interesting, and no wonder it has become historical.
+
+In the cross-examination, every effort was made to confuse and
+discredit the witness, but he bore himself remarkably well. He had
+built or superintended half a dozen short railways, and had
+constructed sixteen locomotives, and he could speak on the details
+of his plans with certainty and confidence. Two things embarrassed
+him; the consciousness of awkwardness of manner and speech among men
+some of whom were inclined to sneer at his northern dialect and lack
+of polish; secondly, the necessity of restraining himself in stating
+what his locomotives could do. He fully believed they could draw
+long trains at the speed of twenty miles, but he was told by the
+friends of the bill that if he made that claim before the committee,
+he would be called a madman, and the bill would be killed;
+accordingly he promised to hold himself down to ten miles per hour.
+
+The evidence brought in against the bill was remarkable, and to-day
+it sounds strange enough. It was urged that the rails would bend
+under the locomotive at high speed; that the engine would run off
+the track on curves; that if the engine got round the curves the
+cars would go off; that the driving-wheels would "spin," if they
+went fast, without drawing the train; that the noise and sight of
+the train would frighten horses and cattle; that hens would not lay
+and cows would cease to give milk along by the road; that the smoke
+would poison the air and blast the fields and parks; that the coach
+lines would be ruined, horses would no longer be of value, and
+coach-makers, harness-makers, inn-keepers and others along the great
+roads would have nothing to do, etc., etc. In the face of ignorance,
+ridicule, contempt, and self-interest, Stephenson firmly maintained
+the safety of a good road, the stability of his engines and cars,
+the harmlessness of smoke and noise, and the facility with which
+animals became indifferent to trains. He said that at Killingworth
+cattle would not stop feeding as the trains went by. As to the
+effect of speed, he boldly asserted that at twelve miles per hour
+the load on a rail would be no more than at six, and in support of
+his position he appealed to skaters who go swiftly over thin ice. As
+to the "spinning" of the wheels, he was positive that no such thing
+ever had happened or could happen. The enemies of the bill caught at
+his suggestion of twelve miles per hour, and so pressed and led him
+on that he declared his honest conviction that his trains could run
+on such a road as he could make twelve miles per hour. This rashness
+alarmed his friends, and they tried in vain to smooth it over by
+declaring such speed to be purely "hypothetical."
+
+In spite of all that could be said in its favor, in spite of the
+pressing need of better transportation for coal, cotton,
+merchandise, and passengers, the bill failed. Such was the
+blindness, and ignorance, and prejudice of the House of Commons!
+Think of calling George Stephenson "an ignoramus, a fool, a maniac,"
+in Parliament, yet such was done.
+
+The friends of the bill were not discouraged; they determined to
+apply again the next year; but poor Stephenson was discredited, Mr.
+George Rennie, the great bridge engineer, was employed to make a new
+survey, and Mr. Stephenson was not called before the committee.
+Meanwhile, the Darlington line was opened, and reports of its
+success had reached London. It seemed to be admitted that the _road_
+was a good thing, but there was great scepticism in regard to the
+locomotive. However, the bill passed in the spring of 1826, and the
+directors were not long in deciding that the only competent man to
+build the road was George Stephenson, and he was elected principal
+engineer at a salary of $5,000.
+
+The building of the road seemed to be, and was at the time, a
+tremendous undertaking. Bridges, viaducts, tunnels, and above all,
+Chat Moss, a yielding bog four miles across and of unknown depth,
+all taxed the engineer and the company to the utmost. The road was
+finished in 1830. With the exception of bridges and rails it was
+very much as it exists to-day.
+
+For a long time the directors were undecided as to the method of
+propelling the cars. Nearly every engineer except Stephenson was
+opposed to the locomotive, or travelling engine.
+
+It seems incredible that Telford and the two Rennies, road-makers
+and bridge-builders, lacked faith in the locomotive, and preferred
+stationary engines and long cables. Their main objection to the
+locomotive appears to have been based on the fact that the steam
+capacity was small, and that it was impracticable to build a
+locomotive large enough to furnish all the steam that was needed.
+Stephenson insisted that already his locomotives were better than
+stationary engines, and yet they could be greatly improved. He said,
+"Offer a generous prize for the best locomotive, and inventors and
+builders will greatly improve their machines, and we will have a far
+better locomotive than now." He said he felt sure he could make a
+much better one himself. By that time Stephenson was part owner in
+new locomotive works at Newcastle, and Robert was in general charge
+there.
+
+The puzzled directors decided to adopt Stephenson's suggestion, and
+offered $2,500 as a prize for the best locomotive. The specifications
+required:
+
+1. The engine (without tender) must not weigh more than six tons.
+
+2. The ordinary steam pressure must not exceed 50 pounds above that
+of the atmosphere.
+
+3. It must be well supplied with safety-valves and pressure-gauges.
+
+4. It must not exceed fifteen feet in height.
+
+5. It must rest on springs.
+
+6. It must be able (if weighing six tons) to draw twenty tons
+continuously ten miles per hour.
+
+7. It must not cost more than $2,750.
+
+8. The boiler must stand a pressure, when tested, of 150 pounds per
+square inch.
+
+9. It must be ready for trial October 1, 1829.
+
+The publication of these conditions and the offer of the prize
+excited great interest, and caused no small amount of comment.[11]
+The Stephensons at once began the construction of "The Rocket,"
+without doubt the most famous locomotive ever built. The improved
+feature it was to have was increased heating surface, so that
+without increased weight it could generate more steam. This was
+effected by putting fire-tubes through the water in the boiler.
+Boiler-tubes had already been used by different people, and some of
+Stephenson's locomotives which he had sent to France had been fitted
+with tubes. At the suggestion of Mr. James Booth, Stephenson decided
+to use a large number of tubes. Modern boilers have smaller tubes
+and more of them, but "The Rocket" was the first to typify the
+modern multitubular boiler. In other respects "The Rocket" was like
+Stephenson's other locomotives built ten or twelve years earlier.
+
+         [Footnote 11: It is said that a prominent man of Liverpool
+         declared that "only a parcel of charlatans would ever have
+         issued such a set of conditions; that it had been _proved_ to
+         be impossible to make a locomotive go ten miles per hour." He
+         added that, "if it ever was done, he would eat a stewed
+         engine-wheel for breakfast."]
+
+A brief description of "The Rocket" will not be out of place: The
+boiler was 6 feet long, 3 feet 4 inches in diameter, and was
+furnished with 25 copper tubes 3 inches in diameter. The fire-box
+was at the rear end of the boiler, 2 feet wide and 3 feet high,
+surrounded by water. The cylinders were high on the sides, pointing
+down to the forward wheels, which were the only drivers. Stephenson
+had used coupling rods between two sets of "drivers," but "The
+Rocket" was made for speed chiefly. Its weight when furnished with
+water was only _four and a half tons_! On trial at Killingworth "The
+Rocket" worked finely and its capacity for steam was marvellous. It
+was sent by wagon to Carlisle and by boat to Liverpool.
+
+On the day set for the trial there were four engines on hand: 1. The
+"Novelty," built by young Ericsson, who afterward in New York built
+the famous "Monitor." 2. The "Sanspareil," by Timothy Hackworth. 3.
+The "Perseverance," by a Mr. Burstall. 4. "The Rocket," by
+Stephenson and Booth.
+
+The programme of test fixed by the judges was to run over a level
+piece of the road at Rainhill, two miles long, forty times during a
+day, at a rate not less than ten miles per hour. The train was to
+weigh three and one-third times as much as the locomotive. Each
+engine was to have a day for trial.
+
+The "Perseverance" proved slow; its best speed was not more than six
+miles per hour; so it was quickly withdrawn.
+
+The "Sanspareil" was made by one of Stephenson's own foremen, and
+differed little from the Killingworth style of locomotive. It was
+rather over weight, but it ran at times as fast as fourteen miles
+per hour. Its machinery was defective, however, and it was ruled out
+by the judges.
+
+The "Novelty" ran at times in good style, but its bellows, for
+making a fire-blast, were defective and repeatedly gave out, causing
+delay. It failed to make the required speed with a full load; by
+itself it is said to have run at the rate of twenty-eight miles per
+hour. Ericsson claimed that he had not had time to properly
+construct his locomotive, and the claim was probably just. As it
+was, the time was extended six days.
+
+The day assigned for "The Rocket" was the third day, but when on the
+second day all other engines failed, it was brought out to entertain
+the spectators. Attaching it to a coach full of passengers,
+Stephenson ran over the line at a rate reaching _thirty miles per
+hour_, to the amazement of all.
+
+The next morning "The Rocket" was subjected to the regular test. Its
+assigned load was thirteen and a half tons which it drew back and
+forth over the two-mile track the full stent of forty times, making
+a spurt at times as high as twenty-nine miles, about three times
+what had been declared possible by the judges! Finally, to show how
+fast the engine could go and still keep the track, Mr. Stephenson
+ran it alone at the astonishing rate of thirty-five miles per hour.
+
+Thus did "The Rocket" surpass all records and all expectations. The
+enthusiasm of every one was unbounded. All doubts were removed and
+Stephenson's opponents in the company became his ardent friends. His
+judgment seemed infallible, and his word was law.
+
+This victory at Rainhill completed the triumph of the Liverpool and
+Manchester Railway. The road was opened the following year, 1830,
+with most imposing ceremonies. Members of Parliament, lords and
+ladies, and even the great Duke of Wellington, honored the occasion
+by their presence, and rode on the excursion trains.
+
+The story of George Stephenson's great work is told. His railroad
+and his locomotive had come together, and to stay. All opposition
+was crushed, and no sooner was one road in successful operation than
+another, sometimes several, were on foot. George and Robert
+Stephenson were in demand everywhere and their locomotive works were
+full of orders. In twenty years England had nearly ten thousand
+miles of railways.
+
+The spectacle of these two men, father and son, working together as
+equals was one often admired. Both became wealthy and full of
+honor. Titled men were proud to pay their respects to George
+Stephenson, and when he died, in 1848, at the age of sixty-seven,
+the whole nation rose up to do him honor.
+
+Though probably Stephenson had never heard of Emerson, Emerson had
+heard of Stephenson, and he called upon him on his visit to England.
+Afterward Emerson said that "it was worth crossing the Atlantic to
+have seen Stephenson alone; he had such native force of character
+and vigor of intellect."
+
+What a contrast that meeting offers! There face to face stood two
+men, two great philosophers, both of whom have broadly and deeply
+influenced mankind--one by deeds, the other by words. One wielded
+the pen, giving us noble, beautiful and inspiring thoughts,
+profoundly analyzing life and character; the other wielded those
+cunning tools with which man subdues nature and harnesses its forces
+to do his will. He wrote not for the pages of a book, but on lines
+of steel with a stylus that conquered time and space, bringing
+distant cities into companionship. I look up to each with an equal
+reverence. Each achieved the conquest of mind over matter, and each
+exhibited the exceeding manliness of a noble life and character.
+
+There is no space with which to speak of Stephenson's safety-lamp,
+nor of the influence his life and character have had on the brain
+and brawn of working England. If my reader is interested to know him
+more and better, let him consult the nearest library.
+
+One word about "The Rocket" and this brief sketch is done. For some
+years "The Rocket" did service on the Liverpool and Manchester road,
+but it soon proved too light for the heavy traffic, and was sold to
+a coal company in the North, where for years it faithfully hauled
+coal-cars from the mines. But even there it was superseded, and in
+contempt consigned to the back-yard. It was still fleet, but not
+strong. In that dreary back-yard among useless lumber, the once
+peerless "Rocket" spent a season or two in rain and snow and sunny
+weather, when George Stephenson bought it back and put it in his
+cabinet at the Newcastle works. After Stephenson's death the
+precious relic was placed in the British Museum in London.
+
+"The Rocket" itself was exhibited a few years ago at the Railway
+Exposition in Chicago, and an exact copy of it was shown at the
+recent World's Fair.
+
+[Signature: C. M. Woodward.]
+
+
+
+
+SAMUEL F. B. MORSE
+
+(1791-1872)
+
+[Illustration: Samuel F. B. Morse.]
+
+
+Samuel Finley Breese Morse, artist and inventor, was born at the
+foot of Breed's Hill, Charlestown, Mass., on April 27, 1791. His
+father was the Rev. Jedediah Morse, D.D., the author of Morse's
+"Geography." At the age of fourteen Samuel Morse entered Yale
+College; under the instruction of Professors Day and Silliman he
+received the first impulse toward those electrical studies with
+which his name is mainly identified.
+
+In 1811 Morse, whose tastes during his early years led him more
+strongly toward art than toward science, became the pupil of
+Washington Allston, then the greatest of American artists, and
+accompanied his master to England, where he remained four years. His
+success at this period was considerable; but on his return to
+America, in 1815, he failed to obtain commissions for historical
+paintings, and after working on portraits for two years at
+Charleston, S.C., he removed first to Washington and afterward to
+Albany, finally settling in New York. In 1825 he laid the
+foundations of the National Academy of Design, and was elected its
+first president, an office which he filled until 1845. The year 1827
+marks the revival of Morse's interest in electricity. It was at this
+time that he learned from Professor J. F. Dana, of Columbia College,
+the elementary facts of electro-magnetism. As yet, however, he was
+devoted to his art, and in 1829 he again went to Europe to study the
+old masters.
+
+The year of his return, 1832, may be said to close the period of his
+artistic, and to open that of his scientific, life. On board the
+packet-ship Sully, which sailed from Havre, October 1, 1832, while
+discussing one day with his fellow-passengers the properties of the
+electro-magnet, he was led to remark: "If the presence of
+electricity can be made visible in any part of the circuit, I see no
+reason why intelligence may not be transmitted by electricity."
+
+It was not a novel proposition, but the process of formulating it
+started in his mind a train of new and momentous ideas. The current
+of electricity, he knew, would pass instantaneously any distance
+along a wire; and if it were interrupted a spark would appear. It
+now occurred to him that the spark might represent a part of speech,
+either a letter or a number; the absence of the spark, another part;
+and the duration of its absence, or of the spark itself, a third; so
+that an alphabet might be easily formed, and words indicated. In a
+few days he had completed rough drafts of the necessary apparatus,
+which he displayed to his fellow-passengers. Five years later, the
+captain of the ship identified under oath Morse's completed
+instrument with that which Morse had explained on board the Sully,
+in 1832.
+
+During the twelve years that followed Morse was engaged in a painful
+struggle to perfect his invention and secure for it a proper
+presentation to the public. The refusal of the Government to
+commission him to paint one of the great historical pictures in the
+rotunda of the Capitol, seemed to destroy all his old artistic
+ambition. In poverty he pursued his new enterprise, making his own
+models, moulds, and castings, denying himself the common necessaries
+of life, and encountering embarrassments and delays of the most
+disheartening kind. It was not until 1836 that he completed any
+apparatus that would work, his original idea having been
+supplemented by his discovery, in 1835, of the "relay," by means of
+which the electric current might be reinforced or renewed where it
+became weak through distance from its source. Finally, on September
+2, 1837, the instrument was exhibited to a few friends at his room
+in the University building, New York, where a circuit of 1,700 feet
+of copper wire had been set up, with such satisfactory results as to
+awaken the practical interest of the Messrs. Vail, iron and brass
+workers in New Jersey, who thenceforth became associated with Morse
+in his undertaking.
+
+Morse's petition for a patent was dated September 28, 1837, and was
+soon followed by a petition to Congress for an appropriation to
+defray the expense of subjecting the telegraph to actual experiment
+over a length sufficient to establish its feasibility and
+demonstrate its value. The Committee on Commerce, to whom the
+petition was referred, reported favorably. Congress, however,
+adjourned without making the appropriation, and meanwhile Morse
+sailed for Europe to take out patents there. The trip was not a
+success. In England his application was refused, on the alleged
+ground that his invention had been already published; and while he
+obtained a patent in France, it was subsequently appropriated by the
+French Government without compensation to himself. His negotiations
+also with Russia proved futile, and after a year's absence he
+returned to New York.
+
+On February 23, 1843, Congress passed the long-delayed appropriation
+of $30,000; and steps were at once taken to construct a telegraph
+from Baltimore to Washington. On May 24, 1844, it was used for the
+first time, Mr. Morse himself sending over the wires the first and
+ever-to-be-remembered message, "What hath God wrought."
+
+[Illustration: Samuel F. B. Morse, Inventor of the Telegraph.]
+
+Morse's parents were already secured to him and his associates, and
+companies were soon formed for the erection of telegraph lines all
+over the United States. In the year 1847 he was compelled to defend
+his invention in the courts, and successfully vindicated his claims
+to be called the original inventor of the electro-magnetic recording
+telegraph. Thenceforward Morse's life was spent in witnessing the
+growth of his enterprise, and in gathering the honors which an
+appreciative public bestowed upon him. As years went by he received
+from the various foreign governments their highest distinctions,
+while in 1858 the representatives of Austria, Belgium, France, the
+Netherlands, Piedmont, Russia, the Holy See, Sweden, Tuscany, and
+Turkey appropriated the sum of 400,000 francs in recognition of the
+use of his instruments in those countries.
+
+The telegraph is not the only great success with which the name of
+Samuel Morse is honorably connected. Having made the acquaintance of
+Daguerre in Paris, he studied with him the infancy of photography,
+and was the first to take sun pictures, or daguerreotypes, in
+America. Also it was he who made the first submarine electric cable.
+This was laid in New York Harbor; and from it he was the first to
+conceive that stupendous idea of the transoceanic telegraph. In the
+preparations for laying the first Atlantic cable he took an active
+part, though the attempt of 1857, in which he personally engaged,
+was not successful. He died April 2, 1872, at New York, where his
+statue in bronze now stands in the Central Park.
+
+
+
+
+PETER COOPER[12]
+
+         [Footnote 12: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By CLARENCE COOK
+
+(1791-1883)
+
+[Illustration: Peter Cooper.]
+
+
+It may be said, without exaggeration, that few men in our time and
+country, not occupying official position, have been so widely and
+sincerely mourned as the late Peter Cooper. Other men have been as
+genuinely good as he, and have founded charitable institutions as
+worthy and as useful, in their way, as the one which is to be the
+lasting monument to his memory. But Peter Cooper held a place in the
+hearts of his fellow-citizens which belonged to him alone. A man, to
+outward seeming, in manners and conversation as plain and homespun
+as his name, he held unshaken from youth to old age--and to few men
+is it allotted to live in uninterrupted health and action to the age
+of ninety-two--the confidence, the respect and the affection of all
+sorts of people: the rich and the poor, the high and the low, the
+learned and the unlearned, people of all parties and of all
+religions. Character is the accumulation of little actions, and
+makes its deepest impression, of course, when these actions have
+been observed by great numbers of people during a long period of
+time. The whole of his ninety-two years, with the exception of a
+short time passed in his youth in its vicinity, were spent by Mr.
+Cooper in the city of New York. It was little more than a country
+town when he was born; it was already one of the great cities of the
+world when he died; and in all that time he had been associated with
+the business enterprises that had helped its growth, as one of the
+chief actors.
+
+The fortune that he built up was both earned and expended here; the
+manner of its earning was known of all men, but the way in which it
+was expended was rather felt than known, for, like all great and
+generous benefactors, Mr. Cooper was without ostentation; but as he
+gave while he was alive and all the time that he was alive; and as
+he gave to the people among whom he lived, and not to outsiders, it
+naturally followed that his name, his person, his traits of
+character, became, as it were, a common possession to the people of
+New York; but few men upon whom such a glare of publicity had fallen
+for so many years would have been able to bear the scrutiny so well
+as Peter Cooper.
+
+He was born on February 12, 1791, presumably in Little Dock Street,
+now Water Street, Coenties Slip, where his father, John Cooper,
+carried on the trade of a hatter. His shop was near the store of
+John Jacob Astor, from whom he bought the beaver-skins which he made
+up into hats. John Cooper had served in the war of the Revolution,
+and when it ended, he retired with the rank of lieutenant. He
+married Margaret, the daughter of John Campbell, who also had served
+in the Continental army, as quartermaster, and who now carried on
+the trade of potter and tile-maker on the spot where St. Paul's
+Chapel now stands.
+
+To John and Margaret Cooper nine children were born, two daughters
+and seven sons, of whom Peter was the fifth, and was named after the
+apostle in the belief, as his father expressed it, that he would
+come to something. Following the fashion of the time, he was set to
+work at his father's trade as soon as he was old enough to work, as
+all his brothers had been before him: and in later years he
+described himself as a little boy, with his head just reaching the
+top of the table where he was set to pulling out the hairs from
+rabbit skins to use in making fur hats; and he was kept at the
+business until he was fifteen, when, as he used to tell, he had
+learned to make every part of a hat. So independent is business
+success of what is commonly called education, that it may be of
+interest to record that Peter Cooper never went to school for more
+than one year, and only in the half of each day of school: his
+parents were poor, and could not spare what his labor earned, and
+besides his health was delicate, and the confinement of school was
+thought more injurious to him than the work in the shop. In
+consequence of this restriction Peter Cooper grew to manhood with
+very little learning beyond reading, writing, and the rudiments of
+arithmetic, and while this was a source of regret to him all his
+life, it was in reality the spur that drove him to found an
+institution that should take away all excuses for ignorance from the
+coming generations of poor boys in his native city.
+
+The elder Cooper would seem to have been a man of small practical
+capacity or staying power, for he moved about from place to place,
+changing his business in the hope of bettering his condition; now
+going to Peekskill to set up a brewery; thence to Catskill, where
+he added brick-making to making beer; then to Brooklyn to try
+hatting again; and finally to Newburgh, where he returned to
+brewing. In all these shiftings of home and business Peter remained
+with his father and gave him what help he could; he used in later
+life to recall his carrying about the beer-kegs to his father's
+customers; but at the age of seventeen, with his parents' consent,
+he came back to New York, and looked about for work on his own
+account. He had saved up from his small earnings, while with his
+father, the sum of ten dollars, and with this, he tells us, he
+bought a lottery ticket, which drew a blank. This seeming misfortune
+he turned to good account, for he then determined never to trust to
+luck again, but to be content to earn his bread in the appointed
+way: it was his first and last speculation. On reaching New York he
+had the usual difficulty in finding employment, but at length was
+accepted as an apprentice by a firm of carriage-makers, to whom,
+with his father's consent, he bound himself until he should come of
+age; his masters agreeing to pay him $25 a year and his board. His
+grandmother had a house on Broadway, in which she gave him the use
+of an upper room, and here in his spare hours he employed himself in
+wood-carving, in which he acquired some proficiency. In his business
+he worked so industriously, and made himself so valuable to his
+employers, that when his time expired they offered to lend him the
+money to go into business for himself; but he did not accept this
+generous offer, as he was determined never to be in debt. While with
+Messrs. Burtis and Woodward he had invented a machine for mortising
+wheel-hubs, thus giving the first evidence of an inventive faculty
+which, though never accomplishing great things, was often of
+considerable service both to himself and the community. On leaving
+the business of carriage-making Peter Cooper went to Hempstead, L.
+I., where he found work in a woollen factory. Here he invented and
+patented an improvement on the machine in use for shearing the nap
+of cloth; and as during the war of 1812 all commerce with England
+ceased, cloth-making in America flourished, and from the sale of his
+machines, which he could hardly make fast enough to supply the
+demand, young Cooper reaped a considerable profit. One of his first
+customers was the late Matthew Vassar, of Poughkeepsie, to whom he
+not only sold some of his machines, but also the right to dispose of
+them in Dutchess County. When he found that his earnings had enabled
+him to lay by the sum of $500, he thought himself justified in
+asking a young woman, Miss Sarah Bedel, whom he had met when in
+Hempstead, to become his wife; but before doing so, he determined to
+visit his parents in Newburgh, and inform them of his intention. He
+found them in great trouble, his father in debt and needing help;
+and without hesitation he placed his small savings at his disposal,
+paid the most pressing of the debts, and made arrangements for
+paying off the rest. His father was thus saved from bankruptcy by
+his son's devotion; but the action was characteristic of Peter
+Cooper, both in its unselfishness, and as indicative of his business
+integrity. He would never be in debt himself, and he was equally
+resolved to keep those belonging to him as free as himself. He took
+pride in the fact that neither he nor his father had ever failed in
+business; and this is the more remarkable, since in the course of
+his business life the country passed through no less than ten
+serious commercial panics.
+
+Peter Cooper and Miss Bedel were married on December 22, 1813, when
+he was twenty-two and the lady twenty-one. Their married life, as it
+was exceptionally long, so it was exceptionally happy. It lasted
+fifty-six years; Mrs. Cooper died in 1869, and Mr. Cooper survived
+her fourteen years, dying in 1883. Their golden wedding was
+celebrated in 1863. They had six children, but only two lived to
+grow up; the Hon. Edward Cooper, once mayor of the city, and Sarah
+Amelia Cooper, the wife of the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt. Mr. James
+Parton says: "There never was a happier marriage than this. To old
+age Mr. Cooper never sat near his wife without holding her hand in
+his. He never spoke to her, nor of her, without some tender epithet.
+He attributed the great happiness of his life and most of his
+success to her admirable qualities. She seconded every good impulse
+of his benevolence, and made the fulfilment of his great scheme
+possible by her wise and resolute economy."
+
+Mr. Cooper seems to have inherited something of his father's
+business restlessness, for in addition to the many pursuits in which
+we have seen him engage, he now bought a grocery stand, and in about
+a year gave that up and purchased a glue factory, selling his
+grocery business and buying a lease of the glue factory for
+twenty-one years, for $2,000, his whole savings. He differed from
+his father in this, that everything prospered with which he had to
+do. The grocery had done well, but the glue factory did better. "At
+that time nearly all the glue used in this country was imported from
+Ireland, and sold at a high price. Mr. Cooper studied the subject
+and experimented, until he was able to make better glue than the
+Irish and sell it at a lower price, and he soon had nearly the
+entire glue business of the country in his hands." But chance had
+nothing to do with Mr. Cooper's success: the secret of that success
+was unremitting industry and generous economy. He worked that he
+might earn, and he saved that he might use and give. For twenty
+years while he held the glue factory, he was his own bookkeeper,
+clerk, and salesman; going to the factory at daybreak to light the
+fires, and spending the evenings at home, posting his books,
+writing, and reading to his family.
+
+In 1828, moved by the interest in business circles in the completion
+of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Mr. Cooper, with two partners,
+bought a tract of three thousand acres within the city limits of
+Baltimore. By the failure of his associates to meet the payment of
+their shares, Mr. Cooper was obliged to shoulder the whole cost,
+amounting to $105,000. The road, too, owing to unexpected
+difficulties in construction, was dreading bankruptcy, from which it
+was saved by Mr. Cooper's ingenuity in devising a locomotive that
+enabled the company to overcome certain difficulties that had been
+thought insurmountable. Failing in the end to sell his land as he
+had hoped, Mr. Cooper decided to utilize the timber growing on it in
+the manufacture of charcoal iron. When he had, after many
+difficulties, established his works, he sold out to some Boston
+capitalists, who formed the Canton Iron Company. Mr. Cooper took a
+large part of the purchase in stock at $45 a share, which he finally
+sold out at $230 a share.
+
+This was the beginning of his interest in the iron business, where
+the greater part of his fortune was made. The remainder came from
+his glue works and the industries connected with them. In 1873, the
+year of the great panic, in a letter to President Grant suggesting
+remedial legislation, Mr. Cooper said that not less than a thousand
+persons depended for their bread on the business carried on in the
+circle of his family. He had at that time two rolling-mills running,
+and two mills for the manufacture of wire and springs; and his glue,
+oil, and isinglass works gave employment to two hundred persons.
+
+The story of Mr. Cooper's connection with the laying of the Atlantic
+cable has been so often told, that we do not repeat it here. It adds
+further testimony to his indomitable energy, his largeness of view,
+his financial ability, and the confidence that was felt in him by
+his fellow-men. The story of the difficulties, failures and final
+success of this grandest achievement of modern science and
+enterprise, is as romantic as any episode in social history.
+
+But, in Peter Cooper's view, the most important event in his
+life--the one to which all his energies, his thoughts, his economics
+had been steadily directed since his youth--was the founding of the
+institution that bears his name, and that has made him a powerful
+factor in the development of New York. It was the outcome, in the
+first place, of its founder's regret for the deficiencies of his own
+early training, which were owing partly to his parents' poverty and
+partly to the lack of public or free schools in his native city when
+he was a boy. But this regret, which could only have been felt by a
+man of superior intelligence, was made to flower in this great
+result by Mr. Cooper's genuine, deep, and unfailing love for his
+fellow-men, and his belief in the duty of every man to help the race
+forward in its progress to a better social condition. He has himself
+stated the principles on which his life was founded. His aim was "to
+render some equivalent to society, in some useful form of labor, for
+each day of his existence;" and "while he had always recognized that
+the object of business is to make money in an honorable manner, he
+had endeavored to remember that the object of life is to do good."
+
+In 1876 Mr. Cooper was nominated for the presidency by the National
+Independent or "Greenback" party. It was with no selfish ambition
+that he allowed his name to go before the voters of the country, and
+his only regret at the result was that a policy was defeated which
+he believed to be for the public good.
+
+Mr. Cooper died April 4, 1883, at the age of ninety-two, after a
+short illness, the result of a cold. At his funeral, the late Dr.
+Crosby said: "What an example has been set by this life to our young
+men! How it shows them what the true aim of life should be! What an
+example to our wealthy men to show that money obtained by honest
+industry, and spent in benefiting mankind, will never produce war
+between labor and capital, but will assuage all angry elements, and
+give universal peace! Oh! if all our wealthy men were like Peter
+Cooper, all classes would be satisfied, all commotions cease, and
+the community would be as near perfection--as near perfection in the
+pecuniary view--as it possibly could be on earth."
+
+[Signature: Clarence Cook.]
+
+
+
+
+LOUIS KOSSUTH
+
+(1802-1894)
+
+[Illustration: Louis Kossuth.]
+
+
+Louis Kossuth was born at Monok, in Zemplin, one of the northern
+counties of Hungary, April 21, 1802. His family was ancient, but
+impoverished; his father served in the Austrian army during the wars
+against Napoleon; his mother is represented to have been a woman of
+extraordinary force of mind and character. Kossuth thus adds another
+to the long list of great men who seem to have inherited their
+genius from their mothers. As a boy he was remarkable for the
+winning gentleness of his disposition, and for an earnest
+enthusiasm, which gave promise of future eminence, could he but
+break the bonds imposed by low birth and iron fortune. A young
+clergyman was attracted by the character of the boy, and voluntarily
+took upon himself the office of his tutor, and thus first opened
+before his mind visions of a broader world than that of the
+miserable village of his residence. But these serene days of power
+expanding under genial guidance soon passed away. His father died,
+his tutor was translated to another post, and the walls of his
+prison-house seemed again to close upon the boy. But by the aid of
+members of his family, themselves in humble circumstances, he was
+enabled to attend such schools as the district furnished. Little
+worth knowing was taught there; but among that little was the Latin
+language; and through that door the young dreamer was introduced
+into the broad domains of history, where, abandoning the mean
+present, he could range at will through the immortal past.
+
+In times of peace the law offers to an aspiring youth the readiest
+means of ascent from a low degree to lofty stations. Kossuth,
+therefore, when just entering upon manhood, made his way to Pesth,
+the capital, to study the legal profession. Here he entered the
+office of a notary, and began gradually to make himself known by his
+liberal opinions and the fervid eloquence with which he set forth
+and maintained them; and men began to see in him the promise of a
+powerful public writer, orator, and debater.
+
+The man and the hour were alike preparing. In 1825, the year before
+Kossuth arrived at Pesth, the critical state of her Italian
+possessions compelled Austria to provide extraordinary revenues. The
+Hungarian Diet was then assembled, after an interval of thirteen
+years. This Diet at once demanded certain measures of reform before
+they would make the desired pecuniary grants. The court was obliged
+to concede these demands. Kossuth, having completed his legal
+studies, and finding no favorable opening in the capital, returned,
+in 1830, to his native district, and commenced the practice of the
+law, with marked success. He also began to make his way toward
+public life by his assiduous attendance and intelligent action in
+the local assemblies. A new Diet was assembled in 1832, and he
+received a commission as the representative in the Diet of a magnate
+who was absent. As proxy for an absentee he was only charged, by the
+Hungarian Constitution, with a very subordinate part, his functions
+being more those of a counsel than of a delegate. This, however, was
+a post much sought for by young and aspiring lawyers, as giving them
+an opportunity of mastering legal forms, displaying their abilities,
+and forming advantageous connections.
+
+This Diet renewed the Liberal struggle with increased vigor. By far
+the best talent of Hungary was ranged upon the Liberal side. Kossuth
+early made himself known as a debater, and gradually won his way
+upward, and became associated with the leading men of the Liberal
+party, many of whom were among the proudest and richest of the
+Hungarian magnates. He soon undertook to publish a report of the
+debates and proceedings of the Diet. This attempt was opposed by the
+Palatine, and a law hunted up which forbade the "printing and
+publishing" of these reports. He, for a while, evaded the law by
+having his sheet lithographed. It increased in its development of
+democratic tendencies, and in popularity, until finally the
+lithographic press was seized by Government. Kossuth, determined not
+to be baffled, still issued his journal, every copy being written
+out by scribes, of whom he employed a large number. To avoid seizure
+at the post-office, they were circulated through the local
+authorities, who were almost invariably on the Liberal side. His
+periodical penetrated into every part of the kingdom, and men saw
+with wonder a young and almost unknown public writer boldly pitting
+himself against Metternich and the whole Austrian cabinet. Kossuth
+might well, at this period, declare that he "felt within himself
+something nameless."
+
+In the succeeding Diets the Opposition grew still more determined.
+Kossuth, though twice admonished by Government, still continued his
+journal; and no longer confined himself to simple reports of the
+proceedings of the Diet, but added political remarks of the keenest
+satire and most bitter denunciation. He was aware that his course
+was a perilous one. He was once found by a friend walking in deep
+reverie in the fortress of Buda, and in reply to a question as to
+the subject of his meditations, he said, "I was looking at the
+casemates, for I fear that I shall soon be quartered there."
+Government finally determined to use arguments more cogent than
+discussion could furnish. Baron Wesselenyi, the leader of the
+Liberal party, was arrested, together with a number of his
+adherents, among whom Kossuth was of too much note to be overlooked.
+
+Kossuth became at once sanctified in the popular mind as a martyr.
+Liberal subscriptions were raised through the country for the
+benefit of his mother and sisters, whom he had supported by his
+exertions, and who were now left without protection. Wesselenyi
+became blind in prison; Lovassi, an intimate friend of Kossuth, lost
+his reason; and Kossuth himself, as was certified by his physicians,
+was in imminent risk of falling a victim to a serious disease. The
+rigor of his confinement was mitigated; he was allowed books,
+newspapers, and writing materials, and suffered to walk daily upon
+the bastions of the fortress, in charge of an officer. Among those
+who were inspired with admiration for his political efforts, and
+with sympathy for his fate, was Teresa Mezlenyi, the young daughter
+of a nobleman. She sent him books, and corresponded with him during
+his imprisonment; and they were married in 1841, soon after his
+liberation.
+
+In the second year of Kossuth's imprisonment Austria again needed
+Hungarian assistance. The threatening aspect of affairs in the East,
+growing out of the relations between Turkey and Egypt, determined
+all the great powers to increase their armaments. A demand was made
+upon the Hungarian Diet for an additional levy of 18,000 troops. A
+large body of delegates was chosen pledged to oppose this grant
+except upon condition of certain concessions, among which was a
+general amnesty, with a special reference to the cases of Wesselenyi
+and Kossuth. The more sagacious of the Conservative party advised
+Government to liberate all the prisoners, with the exception of
+Kossuth; and to do this before the meeting of the Diet, in order
+that their liberation might not be made a condition of granting the
+levy, which must be the occasion of great excitement. The cabinet
+temporized and did nothing. The Diet was opened, and the contest was
+waged during six months. The Opposition had a majority of two in the
+Chamber of Deputies, but were in a meagre minority in the Chamber of
+Magnates. But Metternich and the cabinet grew alarmed at the
+struggle, and were eager to obtain the grant of men, and to close
+the refractory Diet. In 1840 a royal rescript suddenly made its
+appearance, granting the amnesty, accompanied also with conciliatory
+remarks, and the demands of the Government for men and money were at
+once complied with.
+
+Kossuth issued from prison, in 1840, bearing in his debilitated
+frame, his pallid face, and glassy eyes, traces of severe
+sufferings, both of mind and body. He repaired for a time to a
+watering-place among the mountains to recruit his shattered health.
+His imprisonment had done more for his influence than he could have
+effected if at liberty. The visitors at the watering-place treated
+with silent respect the man who moved about among them in
+dressing-gown and slippers, and whose slow steps, and languid
+features, disfigured with yellow spots, proclaimed him an invalid.
+Abundant subscriptions had been made for his benefit and that of his
+family, and he now stood on an equality with the proudest magnates.
+These had so often used the name of the "Martyr of the Liberty of
+the Press," in pointing their speeches, that they now had no choice
+but to accept the popular verdict as their own.
+
+Soon after his liberation, Kossuth came forward as the principal
+editor of the _Pesth Gazette_ (_Pesthi Hirlap_), which a bookseller
+who enjoyed the protection of the Government had received permission
+to establish. The name of the editor was now sufficient to electrify
+the country; and Kossuth at once stood forth as the advocate of the
+rights of the lower and middle classes against the inordinate
+privileges and immunities enjoyed by the magnates. But when he went
+to the extent of demanding that the house-tax should be paid by all
+classes in the community, not even excepting the highest nobility, a
+party was raised up against him among the nobles, who established a
+paper to combat so disorganizing a doctrine. This party, backed by
+the influence of the Government, succeeded in defeating the election
+of Kossuth as member from Pesth for the Diet of 1843. He was,
+however, very active in the local assembly of the capital.
+
+Kossuth was not altogether without support among the higher nobles.
+The blind old Wesselenyi traversed the country, advocating rural
+freedom and the abolition of the urbarial burdens. Among his
+supporters at this period, also, was Count Louis Batthyanyi, one of
+the most considerable of the Magyar magnates, subsequently President
+of the Hungarian Ministry, and the most illustrious martyr of the
+Hungarian cause. Aided by his powerful support, Kossuth was again
+brought forward, in 1847, as one of the two candidates from Pesth.
+The Government party, aware that they were in a decided minority,
+limited their efforts to an attempt to defeat the election of
+Kossuth. This they endeavored to effect by stratagem, but failed
+utterly.
+
+Kossuth no sooner took his seat in the Diet than the foremost place
+was at once conceded to him. At the opening of the session he moved
+an address to the king, concluding with the petition that "liberal
+institutions, similar to those of the Hungarian Constitution, might
+be accorded to all the hereditary states, that thus might be created
+a united Austrian monarchy, based upon broad and constitutional
+principles." During the early months of the session Kossuth showed
+himself a most accomplished parliamentary orator and debater; and
+carried on a series of attacks upon the policy of the Austrian
+cabinet, which for skill and power have few parallels in the annals
+of parliamentary warfare. Those form a very inadequate conception of
+its scope and power, whose ideas of the eloquence of Kossuth are
+derived solely from the impassioned and exclamatory harangues which
+he flung out during the war. These were addressed to men wrought up
+to the utmost tension, and can be judged fairly only by men in a
+state of high excitement. He adapted his matter and manner to the
+occasion and the audience. Some of his speeches are marked by a
+stringency of logic worthy of Webster or Calhoun; but it was what
+all eloquence of a high order must ever be--"logic red-hot."
+
+Now came the French Revolution of February, 1848. The news of it
+reached Vienna on March 1st, and was received at Presburg on the 2d.
+On the following day Kossuth delivered his famous speech on the
+finances and the state of the monarchy generally, concluding with a
+proposed "Address to the Throne," urging a series of reformatory
+measures. Among the foremost of these was the emancipation of the
+country from feudal burdens--the proprietors of the soil to be
+indemnified by the state; equalizing taxation; a faithful
+administration of the revenue to be satisfactorily guaranteed; the
+further development of the representative system; and the
+establishment of a government representing the voice of, and
+responsible to, the nation. The speech produced an effect almost
+without parallel in the annals of debate. Not a word was uttered in
+reply, and the motion was unanimously carried. On March 13th took
+place the revolution in Vienna which overthrew the Metternich cabinet.
+On the 15th the constitution granted by the emperor to all the nations
+within the empire was solemnly proclaimed amid the wildest transports
+of joy. Henceforth there were to be no more Germans or Sclavonians,
+Magyars or Italians; strangers embraced and kissed each other in the
+streets, for all the heterogeneous races of the empire were now
+brothers: as likewise were all the nations of the earth at Anacharsis
+Klootz's "Feast of Pikes" in Paris on that 14th day of July in the
+year of grace 1790--and yet, notwithstanding, came the "Reign of
+Terror."
+
+Among the demands made by the Hungarian Diet was that of a separate
+and responsible ministry for Hungary. The Palatine, Archduke
+Stephen, to whom the conduct of affairs in Hungary had been
+intrusted, persuaded the emperor to accede to this demand, and on
+the following day Batthyanyi, who, with Kossuth and a deputation of
+delegates of the Diet was in Vienna, was named President of the
+Hungarian ministry. It was, however, understood that Kossuth was the
+life and soul of the new ministry.
+
+Kossuth assumed the Department of Finance, then, as long before and
+now, the post of difficulty under Austrian administration. The Diet,
+meanwhile, went on to consummate the series of reforms which Kossuth
+had so long and steadfastly advocated.
+
+Up to this time there had been, indeed, a vigorous and decided
+opposition, but no insurrection. The true cause of the Hungarian war
+was the hostility of the Austrian Government to the whole series of
+reformatory measures which had been effected through the
+instrumentality of Kossuth; but its immediate occasion was the
+jealousy which sprung up among the Servian and Croatian dependencies
+of Hungary against the Hungarian ministry. This soon broke out into
+an open revolt, headed by Baron Jellachich, who had just been
+appointed Ban, or Lord, of Croatia. How far the Serbs and Croats had
+occasion for jealousy is of little consequence to our present
+purpose to inquire; though we may say, in passing, that the
+proceedings of the Magyars toward the other Hungarian races was
+marked by a far more just and generous feeling and conduct than
+could have been possibly expected. But however the case may have
+been, as between the Magyars and Croats, as between the Hungarians
+and Austria, the hostile course of the latter is without excuse or
+palliation. The emperor had solemnly sanctioned the action of the
+Diet, and did as solemnly denounce the proceedings of Jellachich. On
+May 29th the Ban was summoned to present himself at Innsprueck to
+answer for his conduct, and as he did not make his appearance, an
+imperial manifesto was issued on June 10th depriving him of all his
+dignities, and commanding the authorities at once to break off all
+intercourse with him. He, however, still continued his operations,
+and levied an army for the invasion of Hungary, and a fierce and
+bloody war of races broke out, marked on both sides by the most
+fearful atrocities.
+
+The Hungarian Diet was opened on July 5th, when the Palatine,
+Archduke Stephen, in the name of the king, solemnly denounced the
+conduct of the insurgent Croats. A few days after, Kossuth, in a
+speech in the Diet, set forth the perilous state of affairs, and
+concluded by asking for authority to raise an army of 200,000 men,
+and a large amount of money. These proposals were adopted by
+acclamation, the enthusiasm in the Diet rendering any debate
+impossible and superfluous.
+
+The Imperial forces having been victorious in Italy, and one
+pressing danger being thus averted from the empire, the Austrian
+cabinet began openly to display its hostility to the Hungarian
+movement. Jellachich repaired to Innsprueck, and was openly
+acknowledged by the court, and the decree of deposition was revoked.
+Early in September Hungary and Austria stood in an attitude of
+undisguised hostility. On the 5th of that month Kossuth, though
+enfeebled by illness, was carried to the hall of the Diet, where he
+delivered a speech, declaring that so formidable were the dangers
+that surrounded the nation, that the ministers might soon be forced
+to call upon the Diet to name a dictator, clothed with unlimited
+powers, to save the country; but before taking this final step they
+would recommend a last appeal to the Imperial Government. A large
+deputation was thereupon despatched to the emperor, to lay before
+him the demands of the Hungarian nation. No satisfactory answer was
+returned, and the deputation left the imperial presence in silence.
+On their return they plucked from their caps the plumes of the
+united colors of Austria and Hungary, and replaced them with red
+feathers, and hoisted a flag of the same color on the steamer which
+conveyed them to Pesth. Their report produced the most intense
+agitation in the Diet and at the capital, but it was finally
+resolved to make one more attempt for a pacific settlement of the
+question. In order that no obstacle might be interposed by their
+presence, Kossuth and his colleagues resigned, and a new ministry
+was appointed. A deputation was sent to the National Assembly at
+Vienna, which refused to receive it. Jellachich had in the meantime
+entered Hungary with a large army, not as yet, however, openly
+sanctioned by imperial authority. The Diet, seeing the imminent
+peril of the country, conferred dictatorial powers upon Kossuth. The
+Palatine resigned his post and left the kingdom. The emperor
+appointed Count Lemberg to take the entire command of the Hungarian
+army. The Diet declared the appointment illegal, and the count,
+arriving at Pesth without escort, was slain in the streets of the
+capital by the populace, in a sudden outbreak. The emperor forthwith
+placed the kingdom under martial law, giving the supreme civil and
+military power to Jellachich. The Diet at once revolted, declared
+itself permanent, and appointed Kossuth Governor, and President of
+the Committee of Safety.
+
+There was now but one course left for the Hungarians: to maintain by
+force of arms the position they had assumed. We cannot detail the
+events of the war which followed, but merely touch upon the most
+salient points. Jellachich was speedily driven out of Hungary toward
+Vienna. In October the Austrian forces were concentrated, under
+command of Windischgraetz, to the number of 120,000 veterans, and
+were put on the march for Hungary. To oppose them the only forces
+under the command of the new government of Hungary were 20,000
+regular infantry, 7,000 cavalry, and 14,000 recruits, who received
+the name of Honveds, or "protectors of home." Of all the movements
+that followed, Kossuth was the soul and chief. His burning and
+passionate appeals stirred up the souls of the peasants, and sent
+them by thousands to the camp. He kindled enthusiasm, he organized
+that enthusiasm, and transformed those raw recruits into soldiers
+more than a match for the veteran troops of Austria. Though himself
+not a soldier, he discovered and drew about him soldiers and
+generals of a high order. The result was that Windischgraetz was
+driven back from Hungary, and of the 120,000 troops which he led
+into that kingdom in October, one-half were killed, disabled, or
+taken prisoners at the end of April. The state of the war on May 1st
+may be gathered from the imperial manifesto of that date, which
+announced that "the insurrection in Hungary had grown to such an
+extent" that the Imperial Government "had been induced to appeal to
+the assistance of his majesty the Czar of all the Russias, who
+generously and readily granted it to a most satisfactory extent."
+The issue of the contest could no longer be doubtful when the
+immense weight of Russia was thrown into the scale. In modern
+warfare there is a limit beyond which devotion and enthusiasm cannot
+supply the place of numbers and material force. And that limit was
+overpassed when Russia and Austria were pitted against Hungary.
+
+On May 1st the Russian intervention was announced. On August 11th
+Kossuth resigned his dictatorship into the hands of Goergey, who, two
+days after, in effect closed the war by surrendering to the
+Russians.
+
+The Hungarian war thus lasted a little more than eleven months,
+during which time there was but one ruling and directing spirit, and
+that was Kossuth, to whose immediate career we now return.
+
+Nothing remained for him and his companions but flight. They gained
+the Turkish frontier, and threw themselves on the hospitality of the
+sultan, who promised them a safe asylum. Russia and Austria demanded
+that the fugitives should be given up; but being supported by France
+and England, the sultan arranged a compromise by which they were
+detained in Asia Minor as prisoners. Kossuth was released in 1851,
+and made a tour of the United States, agitating in favor of Hungary.
+He never returned to his native land, but lived an exile for over
+forty years. For a while he struggled desperately to help the
+Hungarians; then, finding that the universal progress of liberal
+ideas was doing more for them than he ever could, he resigned
+himself to a peaceful life devoted to literature and science. He
+died at Turin, March 20, 1894, reverenced by all the world, and
+mourned by his countrymen with tumultuous demonstrations as their
+national hero.
+
+Kossuth occupies a position peculiarly his own, whether we regard
+the circumstances of his rise, or the feelings which have followed
+him in his fall. Born in the middle ranks of life, he raised himself
+by sheer force of intellect to the loftiest place among the proudest
+nobles on earth, without ever deserting or being deserted by the
+class from which he sprung. He effected a sweeping reform without
+appealing to any sordid or sanguinary motive. No soldier himself, he
+transformed a country into a camp, and a nation into an army. He
+transmuted his words into batteries, and his thoughts into soldiers.
+Without ever having looked upon a stricken field, he organized the
+most complete system of resistance to despotism that the history of
+revolutions has furnished. It failed, but only failed where nothing
+could have succeeded.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN ERICSSON[13]
+
+         [Footnote 13: Reprinted, by permission, from the Magazine of
+         American History.]
+
+By MARTHA J. LAMB
+
+(1803-1889)
+
+[Illustration: John Ericsson.]
+
+
+In a message, referring to the relations of our country with the
+several nations of Europe, President Harrison said: "The restoration
+of the remains of John Ericsson to Sweden afforded a gratifying
+occasion to honor the memory of the great inventor, to whose genius
+our country owes so much, and to bear witness to the unbroken
+friendship which has existed between the land which bore him and our
+own, which claimed him as a citizen."
+
+This paragraph is a forcible reminder of the impressive ceremonial
+witnessed in the streets and harbor of New York City, on Saturday,
+August 23, 1890. It had been intimated to this Government, as is
+well known, that the Government of Sweden would regard it as a
+graceful act if the remains of Captain John Ericsson should be
+conveyed to his native country upon a United States man-of-war; and
+arrangements having been completed, the Baltimore was assigned to
+the service. In committing the illustrious dead to the care of the
+commander of the Baltimore, Mr. George H. Robinson said: "We send
+him back crowned with honor, proud of the life of fifty years he
+devoted to this nation, and with gratitude for his gifts to us."
+
+John Ericsson's birthplace in Sweden is marked by a large granite
+monument erected in 1867. His father was a mining proprietor, and
+his mother an energetic, intellectual, and high-spirited woman. His
+brother, Nils, one year older than himself, was trained as an
+engineer, became chief of the construction of the system of
+government railways in Sweden, was created a baron, and retired in
+1862 with a pension larger than any before bestowed upon a Swedish
+subject. His sister Caroline, born in 1800, was a girl of unusual
+beauty. As a boy John was the wonder of the neighborhood. The
+machinery at the mines was to him an endless source of curiosity and
+delight. He was constantly trying to make models, even before he had
+learned to read. He had from his own plans constructed a miniature
+saw-mill prior to his tenth birthday, and made numerous drawings of
+a complicated character. The graphic account of his youth and early
+manhood which his biographer presents is full of suggestion and
+instruction. The boy was too much occupied with his contrivances to
+join in the pastimes of other children. His opportunities were
+unusually stimulating. The project of the Goeta Canal Company, one of
+the most formidable undertakings of its kind, was revived when he
+was about ten years old, his father being appointed one of its
+engineers, holding place next to that of the chief of the work. This
+opened a new world of ideas, and the little fellow undertook all
+manner of schemes. He was independent of outside assistance. Steel
+tweezers, borrowed from his mother's dressing-case and ground to a
+point, furnished him with a drawing pen, and his compasses were made
+of birch-wood with needles inserted at the end of the legs. Later
+on, he robbed his mother's sable cloak of the hairs required for two
+small brushes, in order to complete his drawings in appropriate
+colors. The clever lad attracted the notice of some of the greatest
+mechanical draughtsmen in Sweden, who made him drawings to serve as
+models, and taught him many of the principles of the art. Finally
+the celebrated engineer, Count Platen, becoming interested,
+appointed him a cadet in the corps of mechanical engineers; and such
+was his progress in sketching profiles, maps, and drawings for the
+archives of the canal company, that in 1816, at the age of thirteen,
+he was made assistant leveller at the station of Riddarhagen. The
+next year he was employed to set out the work for six hundred
+operatives, though he was yet too small to reach the eye-piece of
+his levelling instrument without the aid of a stool carried by an
+attendant. Thus it will be seen that he was identified almost from
+his cradle with great engineering works. His father died in 1818,
+and in 1820, when seventeen, he entered the Swedish army as an
+ensign and was rapidly promoted to a lieutenancy.
+
+The skill of young Ericsson in topographical drawing was so marked
+that he was soon summoned to the royal palace to draw maps to
+illustrate the campaigns of the marshal of the empire. He also
+passed with distinction a competitive examination for an appointment
+on the survey of Northern Sweden. This new employment was exacting,
+and the pay determined by the amount of work accomplished. Mr.
+Church says: "The young surveyor from the Goeta Canal was so
+indefatigable in his industry and so rapid in execution, that he
+performed double duty and was carried on the pay-roll as two persons
+in order to avoid criticism and charges of favoritism. The results
+of his labors were maps of fifty square miles of territory, still
+preserved in the archives of Stockholm."
+
+At the age of twenty-one John Ericsson is described as "a handsome,
+dashing youth, with a cluster of thick, brown, glossy curls
+encircling his white, massive forehead. His mouth was delicate but
+firm, nose straight, eyes light blue, clear and bright, with a
+slight expression of sadness, his complexion brilliant with the
+freshness and glow of healthy youth. The broad shoulders carried
+most splendidly the proud, erect head. He presented, in short, the
+very picture of vigorous manhood. A portrait of him at this age,
+painted upon ivory for his mother by an English artist named Way,
+has been preserved."
+
+Fifteen years later he was in New York, and is thus described by
+Samuel Risley: "Captain Ericsson all his life was careful of his
+personal appearance; at the time I refer to (1839) he was
+exceptional in dress, not dandified, but more in keeping with the
+present morning-call attire than an ordinary day habit. A
+close-fitting black frock surtout coat, well open at the front, with
+rolling collar, showing velvet vest and a good display of
+shirt-front; a fine gold chain hung about his neck, looped at the
+first button-hole of the vest and attached to a watch carried in the
+fob of the vest. Usually light-colored, well-fitting trousers,
+light-colored kid gloves, and a beaver hat completed the dress. To
+this add a well-built military figure, about five feet ten and
+one-half inches in height and well set-up, with broad shoulders and
+rather large hands and feet; the head well placed and supported by a
+military stock round the neck. Expressive features, blue eyes, and
+brown curly hair, fair complexion. His head was of medium size, his
+mouth well cut, upper lip a little drawn, the jaws large and firm
+set, conveying an expression of firmness and individual character.
+Up to the summer of 1842 I was in constant attendance upon the
+captain, being a sort of factotum to him in preparing his models. At
+that time he boarded at the Astor House, where I first met his wife.
+His manner with strangers was courteous and extremely taking. He
+invariably made friends of high and low alike. With those in
+immediate contact in carrying out his work he was very popular."
+
+Mr. Church, in his biography, devotes three chapters to a
+delightfully condensed account of Ericsson's career in England,
+whither he went in 1826 to exhibit his flame-engine. He quickly
+formed a partnership with John Braithwaite, a working engineer, and
+in his new field of activity produced invention after invention in
+such rapid succession that the truth reads like a fairy tale. An
+instrument for taking sea-soundings, a hydrostatic weighing-machine,
+his improvements in the steam-engine--dispensing with huge
+smoke-stacks, economizing fuel, using compressed air and the
+artificial draught--and in surface condensation, were the work of
+this period, during which he also invented the steam fire-engine,
+which excited great interest in London. The famous battle of the
+locomotives in 1829 brought the young man of twenty-six before the
+English public in a manner never to be forgotten. At that date
+Stephenson himself dared not say very much about the speed of the
+locomotive. Had he ventured to predict that it would reach twenty
+miles an hour on the railway, he would have been laughed out of
+court. He cautiously expressed his faith in the possibility of
+running it ten miles an hour, and multitudes regarded the experiment
+with consternation. There was great prejudice then existing in
+England against railroads. It was a mode of conveyance that would
+bring noble and peasant to a common level, and fashion clung
+tenaciously to its earlier inconveniences, which had at least the
+merit of being exclusive.
+
+But in spite of the baleful prophecies concerning the locomotive
+engine, the officials of the projected railroad between Liverpool
+and Manchester, where the cars were expected to be drawn by horses,
+offered a premium of L500 for the best locomotive capable of drawing
+a gross weight of twenty tons at the rate of ten miles an hour. The
+conditions required a run of seventy miles. Five months were allowed
+for building the engines. Ericsson heard of the project only seven
+weeks before the appointed time of trial, and at once determined to
+compete. He hastily built the "Novelty," assisted by Braithwaite,
+and when the exhibition came off his was practically the only
+locomotive which disputed for the supremacy with Stephenson's
+"Rocket." But a portion of the railroad had yet been finished; thus
+the competing locomotives were compelled to cover their distance by
+making twenty trips back and forth over one and three-quarter miles
+of track. The excitement was intense. The London _Times_ next
+morning said: "The 'Novelty' was the lightest and most elegant
+carriage on the road yesterday, and the velocity with which it moved
+surprised and amazed every beholder. It shot along the line at the
+amazing rate of thirty miles an hour! It seemed, indeed, to fly;
+presenting one of the most sublime spectacles of human ingenuity and
+human daring the world ever beheld."
+
+Ericsson had really built a much faster locomotive than Stephenson's
+"Rocket;" and although it had been constructed with such celerity
+that it broke down before the final point was reached, and he
+thereby lost the prize, yet the superiority of the principle
+involved in it was universally recognized. John Bourn said: "To most
+men the production of such an engine would have constituted an
+adequate claim to celebrity. In the case of Ericsson, it is only a
+single star of the brilliant galaxy with which his shield is
+spangled." "We may imagine," writes Mr. Church, "the excitement
+following the announcement in the _Times_ concerning the performance
+of the 'Novelty,' for to this engine England's great daily devoted
+chief attention." Railroad shares leaped at once to a premium, and
+excited groups gathered on 'change to discuss the wonderful event.
+The pessimists were silenced, and the art of modern railway travel
+inaugurated. A grand banquet was given in Liverpool to the directors
+and officers of the railway and to the competing locomotive
+builders. Toasts and speeches followed; and if Ericsson did not
+carry home with him the L500 offered as a prize, he at least made
+himself known to all England as one of the rising men of his
+profession.
+
+Ericsson's long-cherished plan of a caloric engine was realized in
+1833, and was hailed with astonishment by the scientific world of
+London. Lectures were delivered on it by Dr. Dionysius Lardner and
+Michael Faraday, and it was much praised by Dr. Alexander Ure and
+Sir Richard Phillips. In 1836 Ericsson invented and patented the
+screw propeller, which revolutionized navigation, and in 1837 built
+a steam vessel having twin screw propellers, which on trial towed
+the American packet-ship Toronto at the rate of five miles an hour
+on the river Thames. In 1838 he constructed the iron screw steamer
+Robert F. Stockton, which crossed the Atlantic under canvas in 1839,
+and was afterward employed as a tug-boat on the Delaware River for a
+quarter of a century. Within ten years Ericsson patented thirty
+inventions considered by him of sufficient importance to claim a
+place in the list that in 1863 numbered one hundred.
+
+A notable feature of the admirable work of Mr. Church is the
+elucidation of the truth, so often overlooked, that events never
+spring into being disjoined from antecedents leading to them. He
+explains how the varied achievements of John Ericsson were
+developed, showing with great force and in imperishable colors the
+steps to his successes, and the help the famous engineer derived in
+later life from the studies and experiments of his earlier career.
+Mr. Church, as the literary executor of Ericsson, has had unrivalled
+opportunities for examining the accumulation of data which throw
+light all along the way, and while dealing with the masterly
+engineering exploits of his subject, does not forget that he had a
+human side, and presents him with all his hopes and fears and
+failures, his aims, his obstacles, his courage, and his habits and
+eccentricities. Ericsson certainly cherished a very high ideal, and
+was free to an unusual extent from mercenary motives. His inventions
+did not always pay; he found this a weary world for those who see
+beyond their fellows. Some of his mechanical contrivances in common
+use to-day dated so far back of the memory of any one living that
+before he died he often learned that he was supposed to have copied
+from others what he, in fact, originated himself or first brought
+into use.
+
+The barriers of tradition and prejudice had to be overcome with his
+every new invention. The introduction of steam in any shape to the
+English navy was sharply opposed. It is interesting to trace the
+incidents, apparently without connection, which stand in orderly
+relations one to another as essential parts of an intelligent
+design. Ericsson was in America at the critical moment when all the
+experiences of his previous life were to be brought into full play;
+when he was to take part in an enterprise involving the existence of
+a nation, the hopes of humanity. He was ready to meet the strain of
+a demand to which no other living man was adequate. He was then
+fifty-eight years of age, with the constitution and the vital forces
+of a man of forty, and such experience in actual accomplishment as
+few acquire in the longest span of a lifetime.
+
+When he received the order of our Government for the Monitor his
+plans were already drawn. He had been at work for years perfecting
+his system of aquatic attack, originally designed for the protection
+of Sweden against foreign aggression, and had in 1854 submitted his
+drawings to the Emperor of France. The story of his proceedings in
+Washington is familiar to our readers, but in these notable volumes
+of Mr. Church it is told with a fulness of detail never before
+attempted. The Monitor in all its parts was designed by Ericsson,
+and, fortunately for the country, he was allowed to superintend its
+construction. His former plans, however, had to be carefully revised
+to meet the novel conditions of life in a submerged structure. It
+was estimated that this iron-clad vessel contained at least forty
+patentable contrivances. The entire resources of modern engineering
+knowledge were brought to bear upon the solution of the problem of
+an impregnable battery, armed with guns of the heaviest calibre then
+known, hull shot-proof from stern to stern, rudder and propeller
+protected against the enemy's fire, and above all, having the
+advantage of light draught. Ericsson was made responsible for the
+successful working of his vessel in every respect. The anxiety of
+the Government was such that every stage in the progress of the work
+toward completion was watched with restless interest. Ericsson's
+nerves and sinews seemed to be made of steel. He scarcely took time
+to eat or sleep, and he was deluged with a continuous tempest of
+criticism, warning, and advice, from those who knew nothing about
+the intricacies of science involved in the undertaking. The least
+halting, even trifling delay, confusion of mind, or weakness of
+body, and the story of Hampton Roads might not have been written.
+
+The Monitor was finished and left the harbor of New York for
+Washington on the afternoon of March 6, 1862, in tow of a tug, and
+accompanied by two naval steamers. Chief Engineer Alban S. Stimers,
+U. S. N., who was on the vessel as a passenger, described in a
+letter, dated March 9, 1862, to Ericsson, the dramatic incidents
+attending its arrival at Hampton Roads. "After a stormy passage we
+fought the Merrimac for more than three hours this forenoon, and
+sent her back to Norfolk in a sinking condition. Iron-clad against
+iron-clad, we manoeuvred about the bay here, and went at each other
+with mutual fairness. I consider that both ships were well fought.
+We were struck twenty-two times--pilot-house twice, turret nine
+times, deck three times, sides eight times. The only vulnerable
+point was the pilot-house. One of your great logs (nine by twelve
+inches thick) is broken in two. The shot struck just outside of
+where the captain had his eye, and disabled him by destroying his
+left eye and temporarily blinding the other. She tried to run us
+down and sink us as she did the Cumberland yesterday, but she got
+the worst of it. Her horn passed over our deck, and our sharp,
+upper-edged rail cut through the light iron shoe upon her stern and
+well into her oak. She will not try that again. She gave us a
+tremendous thump, but did not injure us in the least; we were just
+able to find the point of contact. The turret is a splendid
+structure. You were very correct in your estimate of the effect of
+shot upon the man on the inside of the turret, when it struck near
+him. Three men were knocked down, of whom I was one. The other two
+had to be carried below, but I was not disabled at all, and the
+others recovered before the battle was over. Captain Worden
+(afterward admiral) stationed himself at the pilot-house. Greene
+fired the guns, and I turned the turret until the captain was
+disabled and was relieved by Greene, when I managed the turret
+myself, Master Stoddard having been one of the two stunned men.
+
+"Captain Ericsson, I congratulate you upon your great success;
+thousands here this day bless you. I have heard whole crews cheer
+you; every man feels that you have saved the nation by furnishing us
+with the means to whip an iron-clad frigate that was, until our
+arrival, having it all her own way with our most powerful vessels."
+
+If space permitted, it would be interesting to trace the career of
+Ericsson in detail after the success of the Monitor. There was an
+imperative demand for armor-clads, and ere long several were built
+by the inventor and his associates. Ericsson was never idle. In
+connection with his labors upon war vessels he expended no small
+amount of ingenuity on the improvement of heavy guns, his efforts in
+this field being directed by a most exhaustive study into the
+strength of materials, the operation of explosive forces, and the
+laws governing the flight of projectiles. In 1869 he constructed for
+the Spanish Government a fleet of thirty steam gunboats, intended to
+guard Cuba against filibustering parties. In 1881 he devised his
+latest war vessel, the Destroyer, the object of which he said was
+"simply to demonstrate the practicability of submarine artillery,
+unquestionably the most effective, as well as the cheapest, device
+for protecting the sea-ports of the Union against iron-clad ships. I
+do not," he continued, "seek emoluments, as I am financially
+independent; but I am anxious to benefit the great and liberal
+country which has enabled me to carry out important works which I
+should not have carried out on a monarchical soil." His
+investigations included computations of the influences which retard
+the earth's rotary motion; he erected a "sun motor" in 1883, to
+develop the power obtained from the supply of mechanical energy in
+the sun, and he contributed numerous valuable papers to various
+journals in America and Europe on scientific, naval, and mechanical
+themes.
+
+The year in which John Ericsson reached the culmination of his fame,
+1862, was the same in which his brother Nils retired from active
+life in Sweden. The latter had retained his position on the Goeta
+Canal when his brother left it in 1820, and gradually won his way to
+fame and fortune. "He was a man of industry and energy, of sterling
+integrity and public spirit, and an excellent organizer; while his
+conservative and cautious temperament and his skill in bending
+others to his purposes enabled him to make the most of his
+opportunities." After he received his title he altered the spelling
+of his name and became Baron Ericson. This change gave great offence
+to John, who wrote to Nils: "I can never forget the unpleasantness
+caused me by this annulling of relationship. Possibly your wife has
+had her share in it. If so, she will find some day that the
+blotted-out letter will cost her children half a million."
+
+Some of the most interesting chapters in the work of Mr. Church
+relate to the personal characteristics of John Ericsson. He was
+generous to his friends, and his benefactions to Sweden were
+considerable. The financial side of his affairs from year to year
+appears, as well as the record of his failures and successes. It is
+difficult to grasp the whole man and present him to the reader in
+all his many-sided aspects, or to touch upon the variety of his
+studies, endeavors, schemes, and achievements, without danger of
+bewilderment. His biographer has done all this, however, in the most
+skilful and acceptable manner.
+
+A list of the honors conferred upon Ericsson would fill one of our
+pages, and some of the medals received were very beautiful. He was
+decorated as Knight of the Order of Vasa, which was founded by
+Gustavus III. to reward important service to the nation; he was made
+Knight Commander of the Order of the North Star, for promoting the
+public good and useful institutions; a Commander of the Order of St.
+Olaf, to reward distinction in the arts and sciences; received the
+Grand Cross of the Order of Naval Merit, with the white badge and
+star, from King Alfonso of Spain, which confers personal nobility
+and bestowed upon Ericsson the title of "Excellency;" a special gold
+medal from the Emperor of Austria, in behalf of science; a gold
+medal from the Society of Iron-Masters in Sweden; thanks under the
+royal seal and signature from Sweden; joint resolutions of thanks
+from the United States Congress; thanks from the Legislatures of New
+York and of other States; from the Chamber of Commerce; from boards
+of trade in many cities; and he was elected to honorary membership
+in scientific, historical, literary, religious, and agricultural
+institutions innumerable. Among them all he took the most pride in
+his simple title of captain, and in the diploma of LL. D. received
+from the Wesleyan University in 1862.
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON[14]
+
+         [Footnote 14: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON
+
+(1805-1879)
+
+
+William Lloyd Garrison, whose name is indissolubly connected with the
+abolition of American slavery, was born in the seaport town of
+Newburyport, Mass., on December 10, 1805. His father, Abijah Garrison,
+was a sea-captain who came from New Brunswick to settle in
+Newburyport. Deserting his wife and children while the subject of this
+sketch was in infancy, his subsequent career is shrouded in mystery.
+Fanny Lloyd, the mother of William Lloyd Garrison, was a woman of
+remarkable character and personal attraction, with an intense
+religious nature. Dependent upon her own efforts for the support of
+the family, she cheerfully took up the calling of monthly nurse, and
+endeavored to rear her children with care and forethought, and with
+especial attention to their religious training. Upon her removal to
+Lynn, in 1812, Lloyd was left to the care of Deacon Ezekiel Bartlett
+and was sent to the Grammar School until, at the age of nine, he
+joined his mother in Lynn and was taught shoemaking in the shop of
+Gamaliel W. Oliver, a kind and excellent member of the Society of
+Friends, where his elder brother James was already an apprentice. In
+1815, Mr. Paul Newhall, a shoe manufacturer of the same town, deciding
+to establish business in Baltimore, invited Mrs. Garrison and her two
+boys to accompany him. There Lloyd was employed as an errand-boy and
+James was again apprenticed at shoemaking. Mr. Newhall's venture
+proving unsuccessful, Mrs. Garrison was constrained to resume nursing
+and Lloyd was sent back to Newburyport, his brother betaking himself
+to the sea. From Newburyport he was sent to Haverhill to learn
+cabinet-making; but, in spite of kind treatment, he disliked the
+occupation and ran away from his master, returning to Newburyport to
+live again with his mother's old friend, Deacon Bartlett. In 1818,
+Ephraim W. Allen, proprietor of the Newburyport _Herald_, accepted
+Lloyd, then thirteen years of age, as an apprentice and taught him the
+printer's trade. Here at once he found a vocation suited to his tastes
+and became a rapid and accurate compositor. The printing-office proved
+an excellent school for the young man, developing his literary taste
+and ambition. He was fond of reading, and delighted in poetry and
+fiction. Politics especially attracted him, and at the age of sixteen
+he wrote anonymous articles for the columns of the _Herald_. His first
+contribution was over the signature of "An Old Bachelor." He was an
+ardent Federalist and his political articles attracted attention by
+their forcible reasoning and direct style. Caleb Cushing, then editor
+of the _Herald_, discovering the lad's abilities, encouraged and
+befriended him. In 1826, Mr. Garrison, closing his apprenticeship with
+the _Herald_, became editor and publisher of the _Free Press_
+(Newburyport), within a few months of his majority.
+
+[Illustration: William Lloyd Garrison.]
+
+It was to this paper that Whittier made his first poetical
+contributions anonymously, and, upon the discovery of his true name,
+Mr. Garrison sought him out and encouraged him in his youthful
+efforts.
+
+After a brief existence of six months, the _Free Press_ was sold and
+Mr. Garrison again became a journeyman printer, soon seeking
+employment in Boston, where, after various vicissitudes, he was
+employed by Rev. William Collier, a Baptist city missionary, upon
+_The National Philanthropist_, devoted to the "suppression of
+intemperance and kindred vices," becoming its editor in 1828. The
+paper had the distinction of being the first temperance journal ever
+printed, and among the earliest evidences of Mr. Garrison's interest
+in the slavery question was an editorial article by him commenting
+severely on the bill passed by the House of Assembly of South
+Carolina to forbid the teaching of reading and writing to the
+colored people.
+
+To Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker, and at that time editor of the _Genius
+of Universal Emancipation_, in Baltimore--a paper devoted to the
+gradual abolition of slavery--belongs the honor of first attempting
+to awaken public sentiment on the subject. Upon his visit to Boston,
+August 7, 1828, he made the acquaintance of Garrison, whose eyes he
+opened to the iniquity of the slave system. During the same year Mr.
+Garrison accepted the invitation of a committee of prominent
+citizens of Bennington, Vt., to edit the _Journal of the Times_, a
+weekly newspaper devoted to the re-election of John Quincy Adams
+against Andrew Jackson. While started for campaign purposes, the
+_Journal of the Times_ declared for independence of party and
+advocated the suppression of intemperance, the gradual emancipation
+of the slave, the doctrines of peace, and the so-called American
+system of protection for fostering native industry.
+
+Attracted by the anti-slavery utterances of Mr. Garrison, Lundy
+resolved to invite him to share in the editorship of his paper,
+walking from Baltimore to Bennington for the purpose. His
+earnestness had the desired effect upon Mr. Garrison, who accepted
+his proffer and relinquished the _Journal of the Times_. Before
+going to Baltimore Mr. Garrison was invited to address the
+Congregational societies of Boston on July 4th, at the Park Street
+Church, and took for his theme "Dangers to the Nation." The poet
+John Pierpont was present and wrote a hymn for the occasion. The
+address was a stirring denunciation of slavery and a rebuke to the
+nation for its pretentious devotion to liberty. The speaker was
+accused by a Boston paper of slandering his country and blaspheming
+the Declaration of Independence.
+
+Upon his arrival at Baltimore, Garrison, having convinced himself of
+the necessity of immediate and unconditional emancipation, it was
+agreed, inasmuch as Lundy adhered to the methods of gradual
+emancipation, that each should sign his own editorials.
+
+Mr. Todd, a Newburyport merchant, having allowed his ship to be used
+in the inter-state slave trade between Baltimore and New Orleans,
+Mr. Garrison faithfully denounced in unmeasured terms his
+fellow-townsman, and asserted the equal wickedness of the domestic
+slave trade with that of the foreign traffic, which, at that time,
+was in the law considered piracy. Arrested, tried, and convicted of
+libel, although the facts were proven, Garrison was incarcerated in
+the Baltimore jail, April 17, 1830, in default of a fine of $50 with
+$50 costs. Undaunted in his captivity, he continued to write his
+protest against slavery and to record in verse his feelings. His
+famous sonnet, "The Immortal Mind," was written with pencil upon the
+walls of his cell. Liberated at the expiration of forty-nine days,
+through the generosity of Arthur Tappan, of New York, who paid his
+fine, Garrison visited Boston and Newburyport, endeavoring to speak
+in both places, but the doors of halls and churches were closed
+against him. At last the hall used by a society of avowed infidels,
+in Boston, to whom Abner Kneeland preached, was opened to Mr.
+Garrison for three anti-slavery lectures, and among the audience at
+his first lecture were Samuel J. May, Samuel E. Sewall, and A.
+Bronson Alcott, who then gave in their adhesion to the cause. Dr.
+Lyman Beecher was also present but made no sign.
+
+On January 1, 1831, appeared the first number of _The Liberator_, in
+Boston, bearing for its motto, "Our Country is the World--Our
+Countrymen are Mankind." Mr. Garrison, as editor, was assisted by
+Isaac Knapp, a fellow-printer from Newburyport, as publisher. The
+paper was issued at No. 6 Merchants' Hall, at the corner of Congress
+and Water Streets, in the third story, the partners making their
+home in the printing-office. It was this office that Harrison Gray
+Otis, the mayor, at the request of ex-Senator Hayne, ferreted out
+through his police, describing it as "an obscure hole," containing
+the editor and a negro boy, "his only visible auxiliary," while his
+supporters were "a very few insignificant persons of all colors."
+Lowell has thus described it in a different spirit:
+
+  "In a small chamber, friendless and unseen,
+      Toiled o'er his types, one poor, unlearned young man;
+   The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean,
+      Yet there the freedom of a race began."
+
+In the initial editorial appeared the famous declaration of Mr.
+Garrison, "I am in earnest--I will not equivocate--I will not
+excuse--I will not retreat a single inch--and I will be heard."
+Although its circulation was meagre, the publication of _The
+Liberator_ made a tremendous sensation throughout the South,
+bringing upon its editor abusive and threatening language, and, at
+the North, unpopularity and persecution. The Legislature of Georgia
+offered a reward of $5,000 for his arrest and conviction.
+
+In 1832, the New England Anti-Slavery Society was organized in
+Boston, and the campaign for "immediate and unconditional
+emancipation" begun. The Colonization Society, which Mr. Garrison
+formerly supported but later denounced, became the object of special
+attack as an ally of the slave power, and, to counteract its
+designs, he sailed for England, May 2, 1833, to expose its
+proslavery purposes to the English abolitionists. He was cordially
+received by Wilberforce, Buxton, Zachary, Macaulay, Daniel
+O'Connell, and their associates in the struggle for West India
+emancipation, and before he left the kingdom he witnessed the
+passage of the Emancipation Act, and was present at the funeral of
+Wilberforce, in Westminster Abbey. Returning from his successful
+mission abroad he narrowly escaped the hands of a New York mob on
+landing upon his native soil.
+
+In December, 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed, in
+Philadelphia, and Mr. Garrison drew up its famous Declaration of
+Sentiments, which numbered among its signers many of the men and
+women destined to be distinguished in the anti-slavery cause, among
+whom was the poet Whittier.
+
+On September 4, 1834, Mr. Garrison was married to Miss Helen Eliza
+Benson, of Brooklyn, Conn.; a fortunate and happy union.
+
+In 1835, the eminent English orator, George Thompson, came by
+invitation to the United States to assist in the emancipation of the
+American, as he had of the West Indian, slave. The announcement
+that he would speak at a meeting of the Ladies' Anti-Slavery
+Society, held in Boston, October 21st, of the same year, was the
+occasion of a mob composed of wealthy and respectable citizens of
+Boston who aimed to suppress free speech and tar and feather Mr.
+Thompson. He was, however, prevented from attending by his friends,
+but the fury of the mob fell upon Mr. Garrison, who was seized and
+led through the streets with a rope around his body, from which
+position he was rescued through the efforts of Mayor Lyman and
+imprisoned for safety in the Leverett Street jail. This outrage
+created new friends and gave fresh impetus to the abolition
+movement.
+
+In 1840 Mr. Garrison again visited England as a delegate of the
+World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London, in which body, however,
+he declined to sit, because the women who were his fellow-delegates
+from America were excluded.
+
+Occupied continuously with the care of _The Liberator_ and in
+lecturing, Mr. Garrison led an intensely active life, not confining
+himself alone to the anti-slavery reform but embracing among other
+reforms those of temperance, non-resistance, women's rights, and
+religious freedom. For, while educated by his mother in the strict
+tenets of the Baptist faith, he early experienced a change of
+theological views and cast off sectarian bonds. _The Liberator_ was
+used for the expression of his individual beliefs and was not the
+organ of any society.
+
+In 1846, the Free Church of Scotland having sent emissaries to the
+United States to collect funds from the slaveholders, Mr. Garrison
+again went to England to urge the Church to return the money thus
+contributed, and, in company with George Thompson, Frederick
+Douglass, Henry C. Wright and others, agitated the question
+throughout Scotland.
+
+Convinced that the constitutional compact of the North with the
+South to guard and protect slavery was immoral and unjust, in 1843
+Mr. Garrison raised the banner of No Union with Slave-Holders, and
+advocated the dissolution of the Union for the sake of freedom, a
+step which added fresh fuel to the flames of persecution and
+incurred the loss of many lukewarm adherents.
+
+In 1850, the apostasy of Daniel Webster and the passage of the
+Fugitive Slave Law increased the national ferment. The same year
+witnessed the famous Rynder's mob, in New York, and the anti-slavery
+meeting at the Tabernacle, at which Mr. Garrison spoke, was
+violently broken up.
+
+The abolition movement had now assumed formidable proportions,
+dominating the national parties and dictating issues. The Whig party
+fell to pieces in consequence, and to it succeeded the Republican
+party, with Sumner, Seward, Wilson, Giddings, and other earnest men
+as leaders. Meanwhile Harriet Beecher Stowe, by her famous novel,
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin," had given a vivid picture of the wrongs of
+American slavery to the world. The "irrepressible conflict" was now
+rapidly tending to its crisis, and, on the election of Abraham
+Lincoln to the Presidency by the Republican party, in 1860, the
+signal for civil war was given, and, in 1861, the struggle of arms
+inaugurated by the attack on Fort Sumter replaced the peaceful
+crusade of the abolitionists.
+
+The moral agitation of thirty years had produced its legitimate
+results, and when, in 1863, the President promulgated the
+emancipation proclamation the anti-slavery chapter was closed. The
+Union, which heretofore had been paramount to liberty, was now
+subordinated to it, and Mr. Garrison's antagonism necessarily ceased
+with the new amendment to the Constitution. He had been accustomed
+to denounce that instrument as a "covenant with death and an
+agreement with hell," but, as he expressed it, he had "never
+expected to see Death and Hell secede." Foreseeing the inevitable
+consequence of the war, he gave heartily his moral support to the
+Government in the struggle between it and the slave power. His
+non-resistance principles and abhorrence of war in no way diminished
+his interest in the great conflict, and his sympathies of necessity
+were with the soldiers of freedom. His eldest son, George Thompson
+Garrison, not sharing his father's scruples, enlisted in the
+Fifty-fifth Colored Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, attaining
+the rank of captain.
+
+The renomination of Lincoln for a second term, in 1864, developed a
+breach in the ranks of the old abolitionists, Mr. Garrison and his
+adherents supporting Lincoln, and others, under the lead of Wendell
+Phillips, advocating the choice of General Fremont. The latter
+candidate, however, withdrew from the field before the election.
+
+In April, 1865, Mr. Garrison, with his English friend George
+Thompson, was invited by the Government to be present as its guest
+at the ceremony of raising the Stars and Stripes above the
+surrendered Fort Sumter, and was received at Charleston with great
+enthusiasm by the emancipated slaves. The news of President
+Lincoln's assassination hastened the return of the party to the
+North.
+
+The practical extermination of the slave system by the adoption of
+the 13th Amendment convinced Mr. Garrison that the purpose of the
+Anti-Slavery Society and of _The Liberator_ had been accomplished.
+He therefore withdrew from one and discontinued the other. After
+thirty-five years of a stormy and precarious existence the last
+number of _The Liberator_ was issued December 29, 1865. "Nothing
+could have been more in keeping with the uniform wisdom of your
+anti-slavery leadership than the time you chose for resigning it,"
+wrote Lowell to Mr. Garrison a year later.
+
+The recognition of the pioneer's unselfish service thereupon took
+shape in a national testimonial reaching a sum exceeding thirty
+thousand dollars, thenceforth lifting his life above the pecuniary
+cares which had so long weighed upon it. A domestic grief in the
+shape of a paralytic shock to his faithful wife occurred in
+December, 1863, compelling a change of home from the city to an
+attractive suburban house in Roxbury, known as Rockledge.
+
+Although his great life-work was finished, Mr. Garrison abated no
+activity in the various reforms in which he had enlisted. Both with
+voice and pen he reached a wider and more attentive public, pleading
+for justice to the freedman, for the legal emancipation of women,
+the right of the Chinese to free immigration and Christian
+treatment, freedom of trade (for he early eschewed his youthful
+belief in the protective system), and for kindred causes.
+
+Visiting England for the fourth time in 1867, a public breakfast was
+given in Mr. Garrison's honor at St. James's Hall, June 29th. John
+Bright presided, and among the addresses of welcome were those of
+Earl Russell, the Duke of Argyll, John Stuart Mill, George Thompson,
+and W. Vernon Harcourt. Later the freedom of the city of Edinburgh
+was conferred upon the American abolitionist, and in August he
+attended the International Anti-Slavery Conference at Paris,
+representing the American Freedman's Union Commission, and meeting
+Laboulaye, Cochin, and other eminent Frenchmen.
+
+The troubled period of reconstruction, involving the defence of the
+freedmen's rights, found no more interested observer and participant
+than Mr. Garrison. The former hostile treatment which had been meted
+out to him by press and party was of the past, and, like Lincoln,
+
+  "He heard the hisses change to cheers,
+   The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise,
+   And took both in the same unwavering mood."
+
+Unique among reformers, he received in life the reverence that
+usually reveals itself in post-mortem honors which indicate the late
+awakening of public consciousness and suggest the pathos of their
+delay.
+
+The felicities of domestic life were his in more than ordinary
+measure, and "honor, love, obedience, troops of friends," made his
+closing years as serene as his opening career had been stormy.
+Occasional ailments reminded him of advancing age, but his
+temperamental cheerfulness and faith in human progress never forsook
+him.
+
+The death of his dear wife, in 1876, was a visible blow to him, and
+in the next year, for physical and mental recuperation, he visited
+England again for the last time, with his son Francis, enjoying a
+delightful reunion with old friends and making new ones, as was his
+wont.
+
+In May, 1879, during a visit to his daughter in New York, he
+breathed his last on the 24th of the month, with all his children
+about him. He left four sons, named respectively, George Thompson,
+William Lloyd, Wendell Phillips, and Francis Jackson, and an only
+daughter, Helen Francis, the wife of Henry Villard. Two others, a
+daughter and a son, died at an early age.
+
+In 1885, Mr. Garrison's biography, written by his sons Wendell
+Phillips and Francis Jackson, was published by the Century Company,
+in four volumes, octavo. They contain not only the personal details
+of a famous career, but a careful history of the abolition struggle.
+To them the future historian must look for the most faithful picture
+of the anti-slavery times and their leader.
+
+A bronze statue of heroic size, executed by Olin L. Warner, of New
+York, representing Mr. Garrison in a sitting posture, was presented
+to the city of Boston by several eminent citizens, in 1886, and is
+placed on Commonwealth Avenue, opposite the Hotel Vendome.
+
+Mr. Garrison's calm estimate of himself has been preserved and may
+fitly conclude this sketch:
+
+"The truth is, he who commences any reform which at last becomes one
+of transcendent importance and is crowned with victory, is always
+ill-judged and unfairly estimated. At the outset he is looked upon
+with contempt, and treated in the most opprobrious manner, as a wild
+fanatic or a dangerous disorganizer. In due time the cause grows and
+advances to its sure triumph; and in proportion as it nears the
+goal, the popular estimate of his character changes, till finally
+excessive panegyric is substituted for outrageous abuse. The praise,
+on the one hand, and the defamation on the other, are equally
+unmerited. In the clear light of reason, it will be seen that he
+simply stood up to discharge a duty which he owed to his God, to his
+fellow-men, to the land of his nativity."
+
+[Signature: William Lloyd Garrison.]
+
+
+
+
+ELISHA KENT KANE[15]
+
+         [Footnote 15: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By General A. W. GREELY
+
+(1820-1857)
+
+[Illustration: Elisha Kent Kane.]
+
+
+Elisha Kent Kane, son of Judge John K. Kane, was born in
+Philadelphia, February 3, 1820. In his youth he displayed those
+qualifications of ceaseless activity, daring adventure, and strong
+personal courage which characterized his mature manhood. Inclined to
+all efforts involving physical hardships and contact with nature,
+his early education was devoted to civil engineering and such
+natural sciences as chemistry, geography, geology, and mineralogy.
+Unfortunately, in his sixteenth year, chronic and functional heart
+disease developed, which intermittently affected him through life
+and deterred him from the profession of an engineer. Applying
+himself to medicine, he graduated therein in 1842 at the University
+of Pennsylvania, in the meantime having served as a resident
+physician of the Pennsylvania Hospital. His inaugural medical
+thesis, based on personal experiments and observations, gave him a
+reputation which augured professional prominence. In 1843 he was
+appointed physician to the United States embassy to China, under
+Caleb Cushing, who was charged with the negotiation of a treaty with
+that country. At the way ports and during the tedious intervals of
+the treaty negotiations, Kane lost no opportunity of travel and
+adventure. With Baron Loee he visited the Philippine Islands and the
+volcano of Tael. Not content with the usual point of view, and
+despite the protestations of the native guides, he was lowered two
+hundred feet in the crater, whence he scrambled downward to the
+smoking sulphur lake and dipped his specimen bottles into its
+steaming waters. In his ascent the loose, heated ashes charred his
+boots and gave way under his feet, the sulphur vapors nearly
+asphyxiated him, he fell repeatedly, and was barely able to tie the
+bamboo rope around him. Drawn up in an exhausted condition, and
+carried to a neighboring hermitage, he barely escaped violence at
+the hands of the offended natives, who considered his rash feat a
+sacrilege.
+
+Resigning his appointment with the legation, Kane established
+himself as a physician at Whampoa, on the Canton River, where
+illness shortly broke up his professional practice. Fortunately for
+his future fame he was unsuccessful in his application to the
+Spanish Government for permission to practise medicine at Manilla,
+and Kane returned to the United States by the way of Singapore,
+India, Egypt, and Europe, his journey marked by adventure and
+danger. In these, as in all other sea voyages, he suffered
+excessively from sea-sickness, which required all of his indomitable
+will to endure with equanimity.
+
+In 1846 he was commissioned assistant surgeon in the United States
+Navy; his first sea duty took him to the west coast of Africa, where
+coast fever invalided him within ten months. His desire for active
+service was so great that before his health was re-established he
+obtained orders from the Secretary of the Navy to proceed to
+head-quarters of the army, then in the City of Mexico, for duty in
+connection with the collection of data relative to field hospitals
+and surgical statistics. Here his activity and daring resulted in
+his being wounded in a guerilla skirmish.
+
+Assigned temporarily to a surveying vessel, circumstances soon
+determined Kane's career and gave full scope to his enthusiastic
+energies, and insured his future fame. The appeals of Lady Franklin,
+the recommendations of President Taylor, and the generosity of Henry
+Grinnell, had culminated in the organization of a search expedition
+for Franklin in the Arctic regions. It was provided that the vessels
+should be manned by volunteers from the Navy, and among those
+offering their services for this mission of humanity none was more
+importunate than Kane. Persistent efforts brought him orders for
+this fateful voyage while bathing in the tepid waters of the Gulf of
+Mexico, and ten days later he sailed from New York for the icy
+wastes of the North as surgeon of De Haven's flag-ship, the Advance.
+This search, known in Arctic history as the First Grinnell
+Expedition, was made under a joint resolution of the Congress of the
+United States, dated May 2, 1850, "to accept and attach to the Navy
+two vessels offered by Henry Grinnell, Esq., to be sent to the
+Arctic seas in search of Sir John Franklin and his companions." Two
+very small sailing brigs constituted the fleet, the flag-ship
+Advance, commanded by De Haven, an officer of Antarctic experience
+under Wilkes, and the Rescue, under Master Griffin; the entire party
+numbered thirty-three officers and men.
+
+Their objective point was Lancaster Sound and its westward
+extension, Barrow Strait, whence either or both Wellington Channel
+and Cape Walker were to be visited. The squadron passed safely
+through Davis Strait, and skirting the dreaded land-ice of Melville
+Bay, reached Cape York after three weeks of constant and dangerous
+struggle with the heavy ice, which nearly destroyed the Rescue,
+borne almost on her beam-ends by the enormous pressure from a moving
+ice-pack. De Haven fell in with the English squadrons on the same
+errand, August 19, 1850, and, entering Lancaster Sound with his
+British consorts, devoted his energies to the search in hand.
+Griffin, of the Rescue, shared with Captain Ommaney, R. N., the
+honors of the discovery, at Beechy island, of the wintering-place of
+Franklin's squadron in 1845-46. Later three graves of members of
+Franklin's party were found, and numerous evidences of the good
+condition and activity of the expedition during that winter. About
+three weeks later, on September 10, 1850, De Haven concluded that
+the position attained was not sufficiently advantageous to justify
+his wintering, and so decided to return to the United States.
+Unfortunately, strong gales and very cold weather prevented
+immediate action, and in a few days both brigs were frozen immovably
+in an enormous ice-pack, where they were destined to drift
+helplessly to and fro at the mercy of the winds and currents for
+many months.
+
+Beset in Wellington Channel, to the north of Beechy Island, the
+American squadron first found itself drifting slowly, but with
+alarming steadiness, to the north, into waters and along coasts that
+had, as far as they then knew, never been visited. The drift carried
+the Advance to latitude 75 deg. 25' north, longitude 91 deg. 31' west, and
+on September 22d they discovered new land, to which De Haven gave
+the merited name of Grinnell. It proved to be an integral part of
+North Devon, of which it was the northwestern extension. Every few
+days there was a partial breaking up of the pack and consequent
+danger of destruction. On one occasion, says Kane: "We are lifted
+bodily eighteen inches out of water. The hummocks are reared up
+around the ship, so as to rise a couple of feet above our bulwarks,
+five feet above our deck. They are very often ten and twelve feet
+high, and threaten to overwhelm us. Add to this, darkness, snow,
+cold, and the absolute destitution of surrounding shores." The
+temperature fell below zero and the ships seemed destined to winter
+in Wellington Channel, but fortunately a strong northwest gale, in
+conjunction with heavy tides, disintegrated the main pack and set
+ships, ice and all, southward into Barrow Strait. Here they fell
+under the action of a southeasterly current and, drifting all
+winter, passed slowly through Lancaster Sound into Baffin Bay, where
+the opening polar summer found them yet fast in the ice, from which
+the two brigs were freed off Cape Walsingham, June 5, 1851, after
+drifting in eight and a half months a distance of ten hundred and
+fifty miles. It is impossible to adequately describe their physical
+discomforts and dangers, the mental depression of the sunless
+midwinter of eight weeks, and the even harder experiences of the
+Arctic spring-tide, when excessive cold and increasing lassitude
+made steady inroads on their impaired constitutions. Kane tells us
+they were continually harassed by uncertainties as to their ultimate
+fate. Yesterday the unbroken floe, stretching as far as the eye
+could reach, seemed so firm and stable as to insure months of quiet,
+uninterrupted life. Today, the groaning, uneasy pack, yielding to an
+unseen power, split and cracked in all directions, throwing up huge
+masses of solid ice, that threatened to destroy instantly the ship,
+and occasionally opened in wide cracks through which rushed the open
+sea. Indeed, the conditions were so critical and the ice-movements
+so rapid, that the entire party, within the brief space of
+twenty-four hours, had four times made ready to abandon their
+vessels.
+
+In March the cold became intense, and for a week it averaged
+fifty-three degrees below the freezing-point. Scurvy assailed all
+but five of the crew, and De Haven was so ill that all his duties
+devolved on Griffin, who heroically bore up under disease and the
+mental and moral responsibilities that the situation forced on him.
+In all his efforts Griffin had no more effective coadjutor than the
+fleet-surgeon, Kane. Whether acting as a medical officer, treating
+skilfully the diseased crew; as a hunter, supplementing their scanty
+stock of anti-scorbutic food with the fresh meat of the seal; or as
+a man, devising means of amusement and stimulating them to mental
+and physical exertions, Kane incessantly displayed such qualities of
+cheerfulness, activity, and ingenuity as tended to dispel the pall
+of despair that sometimes enveloped the whole expedition.
+
+When release from the ice permitted the voyage to be renewed, De
+Haven decided to refit in the Greenland ports and again return to
+Lancaster Sound; fortunately, as the squadron was not fitted for a
+second year's work, the ice in Melville Bay was such as to prevent
+immediate passage, and so they turned southward, reaching the United
+States on September 30, 1851.
+
+Such desperate experiences as those involved in the midwinter drift
+of the Advance, would have deterred most men for a time from a
+second voyage, but with Kane the stimulus to future work apparently
+increased with every league that he sailed southward. The ship was
+hardly in port before he initiated a plan for another expedition in
+the spring of 1852. This failing he wrote Lady Franklin in May,
+offering to go with Captain Penny, or any good sailing-master, to
+give his services without pay, and pledging himself to go to work
+and raise funds.
+
+Finding it impossible to go with any British expedition, he turned
+his entire efforts to organizing another from America. His chivalric
+enthusiasm enlisted the sympathies and active support of Henry
+Grinnell and George Peabody, the first loaning the ship and the
+latter contributing $10,000 for general expenses. The United States
+again aided, not only putting Kane on sea-pay, but also attached ten
+men of the Navy, under government pay. Instruments, provisions,
+etc., were likewise supplied by the Secretary of the Navy, and aid
+in other directions was afforded by the Smithsonian Institution, the
+Naval Observatory, and other scientific associations. At this
+juncture the discoveries of Captain Inglefield, R. N., in Smith
+Sound, afforded to Kane a new route for his activities. The scheme,
+as far as the search for Franklin was concerned, was well-meaning,
+but none the less fallacious and illogical. Kane was personally
+cognizant of the fact that Franklin had gone into Lancaster Sound,
+and had wintered in 1845-46 at Beechy Island, plainly following the
+direct and positive orders of the Admiralty, that he should push
+southward from Cape Walker to the neighborhood of Behring Strait.
+Moreover, the last mail ever received from the Franklin expedition
+contained a letter from Captain Fitz-James, in which he stated that
+Franklin had shown him the orders, expressed his disbelief in an
+open sea to the north, and had given "a pleasant account of his
+expectations of being able to get through the ice on the north coast
+of America."
+
+A search for Franklin by the way of Smith Sound, seventeen degrees
+of longitude and four degrees of latitude to the north and east of
+his last known position, was to assume not only that Franklin had
+disobeyed the strict letter of his instructions, but had also
+abandoned his voyage after having accomplished one-third of the
+distance from Greenland to Behring Strait.
+
+As the initiator and inspirer of the expedition, Kane was the
+natural head of it, but there were difficulties in the way.
+
+The assignment of a surgeon to the command of a naval expedition was
+unprecedented; but somehow Kane succeeded in overcoming even the
+time-honored observances of the Navy, and was placed in command by a
+formal order of the Secretary of the Navy in November, 1852.
+
+Kane repeatedly set forth his belief in an open Polar sea, and
+announced his expectation of reaching it. The expedition was not
+alone a proposed search for Franklin, but especially contemplated
+the continuation to the northward of the discoveries made in 1851 by
+Captain Inglefield, on the west coast of Greenland. Kane declared
+his intention of reaching "its most northern attainable point, and
+thence pressing on toward the Pole as far as boats or sleds could
+carry us, examine the coast lines for vestiges of the lost party,"
+and "seeking the _open sea_ ... launch our little boats, and embark
+upon its waters."
+
+On May 30, 1853, the expedition left New York in the sailing brig
+Advance, there being seventeen members all told. The vessel was
+stanch, well-fitted, and suitable, the scientific instruments
+satisfactory, but the provisions were illy chosen for Arctic
+service, and the equipment in many respects inadequate or deficient.
+The Greenland ports supplied skin-clothing, dogs, and Eskimo
+dog-drivers; the latter being destined to play an important part in
+establishing harmonious relations with the Etah natives. On reaching
+Melville Bay, Kane decided to take the middle passage, direct
+through the dreaded pack--a most venturesome route for a
+sailing-vessel. Favored by an off-shore gale, the Advance escaped
+with the loss of a whaleboat, and emerged into the open sea near
+Cape York, known as the North Water. Stopped by the ice, Kane wisely
+decided to cache his metallic life-boat, filled with boat-stores, on
+Littleton Island, so as to secure his retreat, since, as he says:
+"My mind was made up from the first that we are to force our way to
+the north as far as the elements will let us." The ice opening with
+the tide, Kane rounded Cape Hatherton and was now in Kane Sea; but
+the Advance was immediately driven into a cove for shelter. At the
+first opportunity sail was again made and a short distance gained to
+the east-northeast, when a violent gale nearly wrecked her. Repeated
+efforts to work the vessel to the eastward, along a lee coast,
+destroyed fittings and boat, and were so fruitful in danger that on
+August 26th seven out of his eight officers addressed Kane in
+writing, to the effect "that a further progress to the North was
+impossible, and [they] were in favor of returning southward to
+winter." Unfortunately, Kane was not "able conscientiously to take
+the same view," as such retreat would have left him in a less
+favorable situation to pursue his explorations. Two weeks longer the
+brig was warped to the east during high water, whenever she was not
+jammed by huge floes against the rugged coast; but at low water the
+brig grounded and was daily in danger of total destruction. Finally,
+on September 9th, she was put in winter-quarters in 78 deg. 37' N., 71 deg.
+14' W., in Rensselaer Harbor, which, says Kane, "we were fated never
+to leave together--a long resting-place to her, for the same ice is
+round her still." Winter now advanced with startling rapidity and
+excessive severity; freezing temperatures now permanently obtained,
+the water-fowl were gone, and the scanty vegetation blighted. All
+were busy, some constructing a building for magnetic and
+meteorological observations, others making journeys along the
+eastern coast. Kane visited the high land adjoining Mary Minturn
+River, some fifty miles away, whence he could see Washington Land in
+the vicinity of Cape Constitution. Hayes and Wilson journeyed on the
+inland ice, while McGary with six others made three caches on the
+coast, the farthest being under the face of the largest of all
+Arctic glaciers, now known by the name of Humboldt. The winter
+proved to be unusually cold, the temperature, from December to March
+inclusive, averaging fifty-four degrees below the freezing-point of
+water. Most fortunately the men remained in health, but Kane grieved
+over the loss of his dogs, only a dozen surviving out of the
+original eighty.
+
+In this contingency Kane decided to put his men in the field, and
+after two weeks of excessive cold, the temperature averaging
+seventy-seven degrees below freezing, a party was sent out while the
+mercury was yet frozen. Their orders were to reach Washington Land,
+about one hundred miles distant across the sea-ice. It soon became
+evident to Brooks, the commander of the party, that the journey was
+impossible of execution, and after eight marches, in which less than
+forty miles were traversed, he turned back on March 29, 1854. The
+cold that day was intense, about ninety degrees below freezing, and
+the next morning four men were frozen so badly that they could not
+walk. Only four men were left for work. The distance to the brig was
+thirty miles, while the intervening ice was so rough that they could
+not drag their disabled comrades. Hickey volunteered to remain,
+while Sontag, Ohlsen, and Petersen should go to the brig for help.
+The three men finally reached the Advance, but they were so
+physically exhausted and in such mental condition that they could
+not even indicate in what direction they had left their comrades.
+
+Kane appreciated the gravity of the situation and the necessity of
+prompt measures. A relief party was at once started, which Kane led
+himself, despite his impaired health, physical weakness, and general
+unfitness for such a desperate journey; as always, he spared not
+himself when danger threatened. Ohlsen, being the clearest-headed of
+the sledgemen, was put in a sleeping-bag and dragged on a sledge as
+a guide.
+
+Eighteen hours' travel were without tangible result; Kane fainted
+twice on the snow; his stoutest men were seized with trembling fits,
+and as yet no signs of the missing party. Fortunately Kane had taken
+the Eskimo, Hans Hendrik, whose keen eye discovered the track that
+led to the tent of the frozen men. They were alive, but crippled
+beyond the possibility of marching. The weather remained fine or all
+would have perished, and as it was, Hayes, the surgeon, in his
+report of their condition on reaching the brig, said: "I was
+startled by their ghastly appearance. When I hailed them they met me
+only with a vacant, wild stare. They were to a man delirious." Of
+the eight men only one returned sound; two shortly died, two others
+suffered amputations, and three escaped with temporary disabilities.
+
+Three weeks later, on April 26th, Kane set out on what, to use his
+own words, "was to be the crowning expedition of the campaign, to
+attain the Ultima Thule of the Greenland shore." Impressed with the
+impracticability of a direct journey across the main ice-pack, he
+decided to follow the shore-line, five men dragging a sledge, while
+Kane and Godfrey travelled by dog-team. He had been led by his
+resolute spirit to overestimate the physical strength of his men and
+himself, and the party broke down before it had even approached the
+Humboldt Glacier. Their enthusiastic leader was stricken with
+fainting spells and rigidity of limbs, but Kane would not admit his
+illness to be more than temporary, and bidding the men strap him on
+the sledge, proceeded onward. His diminished physical powers now
+became evident through the freezing of his rigid and swollen limbs.
+Delirious and fainting at the end of the march, he was carried in an
+almost insensible condition to his tent, when his men wisely took
+the matter in their own hands and started back for the brig. Nine
+days later, through forced marches and heroic efforts of his
+sledge-mates, themselves partially disabled, Kane was carried on
+board the Advance fluctuating between life and death. Hardly
+conscious, his mind clouded, and his swollen features barely
+recognizable, his general condition was such that the surgeon
+regarded his ultimate recovery as nearly hopeless.
+
+While Kane's recuperative powers were simply marvellous, yet he did
+not recover sufficiently to make another journey that spring. In
+this extremity he turned to his surgeon, Israel I. Hayes, who
+volunteered to explore the unknown shores of Grinnell Land, which
+lay in sight to the west of Smith Sound. With the seaman Godfrey as
+a companion and a dog-team as the means of transportation, Hayes
+struggled through the almost impassable floes and bergs of the main
+strait and finally attained Cape Hayes, on the western coast, in
+about 79 deg. 45' N. latitude. The return journey to the Advance was
+possible only by abandoning everything that in the slightest degree
+impeded the progress of the exhausted men and famishing dogs.
+
+This success caused Kane to make one more effort to reach the
+hitherto inaccessible Washington Land, and for this purpose he
+placed all his means at the disposal of one of his seamen, William
+Morton. A supporting party accompanied Morton to Humboldt Glacier,
+whence he proceeded with Eskimo Hans Hendrik and a dog-team on the
+advance journey. Their track lay over the sea-ice, about five miles
+from, and parallel with, the face of the glacier. Five days took
+them to the new land to the north, and three days later, June 24,
+1854, Morton reached alone an impassable headland, Cape
+Constitution. From the highest attainable elevation Morton found his
+view completely cut off to the northeast, but between the west and
+north he could see the southeastern half of Kennedy's Channel as far
+north as Mount Ross, 80 deg. 58' N. He says "Not a speck of ice was to
+be seen as far as I could observe; the sea was open, the swell came
+from the northward ... and the surf broke in on the rocks below in
+regular breakers." Morton described accurately the general
+landscape, but he was an incompetent astronomical observer, and his
+estimates of distances were excessive. The farthest point was
+charted nearly a hundred miles north of its true position, while
+Cape Constitution was placed 31 miles too far north by Morton and 52
+geographic miles by Kane, who "corrected" Morton's observations by a
+series of erroneous bearings. Morton's general account of his
+explorations has been confirmed by Hans Hendrik in his Memoir
+written some years since in Eskimo.
+
+In the meantime the Etah Eskimo, natives of Prudhoe land, had
+discovered the brig, and through the interpreter, Hans Hendrik,
+promptly established friendly relations with Kane. It may be said
+that the expedition owed its final safety to these natives; their
+supplies of fresh meat checked scurvy, and later their dog teams
+rendered retreat possible. Slight misunderstandings, not always the
+fault of the natives, naturally occurred, but the Eskimo were
+honest, humane, and willing, and never committed a hostile act.
+
+The summer of 1854 justified the expressed fears of Kane's officers,
+for it passed with the ice yet unbroken in Rensselaer Harbor. It was
+evident in July that the brig would never be freed from the ice, and
+in this critical situation, Kane, taking five men in a whaleboat,
+attempted to reach Beechy Island, several hundred miles to the
+southwest, whence he expected to obtain succor from the English
+searching squadron. The unfavorable condition of the ice in Smith
+Sound caused the failure of this attempt, and, yet worse, encouraged
+the idea of dividing the party; an idea that culminated in the
+well-known "Arctic Boat Journey," as Dr. Hayes termed it. Despite
+Kane's futile experiences in July, the majority of the party
+maintained that a boat journey to Upernavik was both practicable and
+advisable. Confronted by this attitude of the expeditionary force,
+Kane assembled them, set forth the dangers of such an attempt, and
+vehemently urged them to abandon the project, which the lateness of
+the season and the unfavorable ice conditions rendered most
+improbable of success. Finally he granted the privilege of
+unfettered action to such as believed the journey practicable,
+stipulating only that those leaving the vessel should renounce, in
+writing, all claims upon the expedition and should elect a leader.
+Nine elected to go, eight to remain. Kane displayed a magnanimous
+spirit, equipping them most liberally, and assuring them, in
+writing, that the brig should be ever open should disaster overtake
+them. The boat journey was a failure, and Kane bade them welcome
+when, early in December, he learned that the party, some two hundred
+miles distant and in imminent danger of perishing by starvation, was
+desirous of returning to the Advance. Kane promptly sent supplies to
+the suffering men, and, on December 12th, the entire crew was once
+again upon the brig.
+
+The winter of 1854-5 passed wretchedly; the physical condition of
+the party steadily deteriorated; failing fuel necessitated the
+burning of the upper woodwork of the brig; their food was reduced to
+ordinary marine stores, and game failed equally to the hunters of
+the Advance and the persistent efforts of the Etah natives on the
+ice-clad land and in the frozen sea. In addition scurvy attacked the
+crew; Hayes lost a portion of his frozen foot, and hardly a man of
+the crew remained fit for duty. The necessity of abandoning the brig
+and retreating by boat to Upernavik, Danish Greenland, was now
+forced upon Kane's mind. The co-operation of the natives greatly
+facilitated, if it did not alone render possible, the transportation
+of their provisions, boats, and stores to Cape Alexander. Kane says
+the Eskimo "brought daily supplies of birds, assisted in carrying
+boat stores, and invariably exhibited the kindest feelings and
+strictest honesty."
+
+Bidding farewell to the natives at Cape Alexander on June 15, 1855,
+Cape York was passed, the land ice of Melville Bay followed, and the
+northern coast of Danish Greenland reached in forty-seven days. In
+the meantime a relief squadron under command of Lieutenant
+Hartstene, United States Navy, had visited Smith Sound, where the
+natives informed him of Kane's journey southward. Taken on board the
+returning flag-ship at Disco, Kane and his men reached New York,
+October 11, 1855.
+
+Kane had hardly reached home when it became evident that his
+undermined constitution could not longer withstand the inroads of a
+disease which for twenty years had afflicted him. Change of climate
+was tried without avail, and he died at Havana, Cuba, February 16,
+1857, at the early age of thirty-seven.
+
+Between his first and second voyages Kane had become deeply
+interested in Margaretta Fox, one of the well-known spiritualists,
+who later published their correspondence under the title of "The
+Love Life of Dr. Kane." Their relations, it is believed, resulted in
+a secret marriage shortly before Kane's death.
+
+The rare literary skill shown in the account of Kane's expedition
+has charmed millions of readers with its graphic account of the
+labors, hardships, and privations of Kane and his men. It should
+not, however, be considered that this expedition merits attention
+alone from its tales of suffering and bravery, for none other of
+that generation contributed so materially to a correct knowledge of
+the Arctic regions. In ethnology it gave the first full account of
+the Etah Eskimo, the northernmost inhabitants of the world; in
+natural history its data as to the flora and fauna of the isolated
+and ice-surrounded extremity of western Greenland were original,
+and have been to this day but scantily supplemented; in physical
+sciences, the magnetic, tidal, and climatic observations remained
+for twenty years the most important series pertaining to the Arctic
+regions. Kane's voyage not only extended geographically Inglefield's
+discoveries a hundred miles to the northward, but it also opened up
+a practical and safe route for Arctic exploration, which has been
+more fruitful of successful results than any other.
+
+Kane was a man of generous impulses, enthusiastic ideals, and kindly
+heart. His chivalric nature, indomitable will, and great courage
+often impelled him to hazardous enterprises; but he stands out in
+this modern age as an unselfish character, willing to brave
+hardships and risk his own life on a vague possibility of rescuing
+Franklin and his companions.
+
+[Signature: A. W. Greely.]
+
+
+
+
+FERDINAND DE LESSEPS[16]
+
+         [Footnote 16: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By CLARENCE COOK
+
+(1805-1894)
+
+[Illustration: Ferdinand de Lesseps.]
+
+
+If, as Dante sings: "There is no greater grief than in a time of
+misery to remember happier days," there are few persons in our time
+who can testify more feelingly to the truth of the poet's words than
+Ferdinand de Lesseps. For many years he was a bright-shining,
+sympathetic figure among those who lead in the van of our material
+progress; and the accomplishment, by his initiative and energy, of
+the long dream of the Suez Canal, made him the hero, not of his own
+nation alone, but of all the civilized world; honors were heaped
+upon him, and acclamations greeted him on every side. His name
+became a household word.
+
+A few years later, and all is changed. At the advanced age of
+eighty-eight, Ferdinand de Lesseps is in deep disgrace. Charged with
+the chief responsibility for the ruin brought about by the failure
+of another of his great enterprises--the Panama Canal--he has been
+condemned by the tribunal to pay a huge fine, and has only been
+saved from the shame of actual imprisonment by the knowledge of his
+judges that, in his feeble state of health, imprisonment would
+speedily be fatal. As at the ceremonies on the occasion of the
+opening of the Suez Canal, De Lesseps was compared to Columbus, the
+opener of a way to the new world, so we may see the close of the
+great discoverer's career reflected in the tragic ending of the
+splendid fortunes of De Lesseps.
+
+Ferdinand de Lesseps was the son of a French gentleman who, fifty
+years since, was in the Consular service of France in Egypt. He was
+born at Versailles in 1805, and after receiving the usual education
+given to youth of his class, he was early inducted into the
+mysteries of diplomatic life, where his father's services and
+influence naturally opened a way for him. In 1833, when
+twenty-eight, he was made consul at Cairo, and remained at that post
+for over ten years, during which time he laid the foundations for
+that knowledge of all matters connected with Egyptian affairs which
+was to prove so valuable to him and to the world a few years later.
+
+In 1842, De Lesseps was transferred from Cairo to Spain, and was
+made consul at Barcelona. Spain was at this time much disturbed by
+factional quarrels and jealousies, partly due to disputed claims to
+the succession to the throne, and partly to the angry rivalries of
+political leaders, each eager to save the country by his particular
+nostrum. In the dynastic struggle, Queen Christina, made regent
+after the death of her husband, Ferdinand VII., had been exiled to
+France, and General Espartero, who at first had stood for her cause,
+now ruled as regent in her place. In 1843, the year after the
+arrival of De Lesseps, the city of Barcelona, which in common with
+many other places had refused to support Espartero, openly revolted,
+and was besieged and bombarded by his forces; and in the course of
+the siege, which brought great misery upon the inhabitants, De
+Lesseps did so many humane and generous acts at great personal risk,
+that he was rewarded by honors from the governments of several
+nations whose subjects had been protected by him in his official
+capacity.
+
+It was natural that after this proof of his abilities, De Lesseps
+should be advanced to a still higher position, and in the spring of
+1848 he was made minister to Madrid. This place he held, however,
+only until February, 1849, for in May of that year he was sent to
+Rome to patch up a peace between the popular party and the French
+army of occupation. This proved an unfortunate venture. De Lesseps
+was recalled to France in disgrace, in June of the same year, for
+having shown too great a sympathy for the party of Mazzini, which
+aimed to establish a Roman Republic.
+
+It may be conjectured that the disappointment of De Lesseps at this
+abrupt ending of his diplomatic career was not very great. He had
+not been drawn to the profession by natural inclination, but had
+inherited it, so to speak, from his father, as another man might
+inherit the profession of law or medicine, or as the son of a
+mechanic might inherit his father's trade. His ambition and tastes
+both led him in a different direction; he would play a more active,
+a more striking part in the affairs of his time.
+
+During the period of his residence in Egypt, as consul for France,
+he must often have heard the project of a canal across the Isthmus
+of Suez discussed, since the course of events was every year making
+the necessity of the undertaking more evident. As is well known, the
+idea of such a canal was not a new one: Herodotus speaks of a canal
+designed and partly excavated by Pharaoh Necho in the seventh
+century before Christ, to connect the city of Bubastis, in the Delta
+of the Nile, with the Red Sea. As planned, the canal was to be ten
+feet deep with a width sufficient for two triremes to pass abreast,
+and it was expected that the voyage would be accomplished in four
+days. After the lives of 126,000 Egyptian workmen had been
+sacrificed to the hardships of the undertaking, Herodotus says that
+Necho, alarmed at the difficulties and expense, consulted the Oracle
+as to what was best for him to do, and received the answer: "Thou
+art working for barbarians." The Egyptians, like the Greeks,
+considered all foreigners as barbarians, and the answer simply
+reflected the sentiment of the people, or of their leaders, that
+this vast expenditure of labor, time, and money would prove to be,
+after all, as much for the benefit of foreigners as for themselves.
+The Oracle gave a voice to national and political prejudices, such
+as even in our own time are continually evoked to block the wheels
+of great enterprises. Necho, we are told, heeded the warning of the
+Oracle and abandoned the enterprise, but about one hundred years
+later, in the time of Darius Hystaspes, work on the canal was
+resumed and the undertaking was completed. From time to time we find
+mention made of the canal by later authors, but about the end of the
+eighth century of our era it was finally abandoned and left to be
+blocked up by the sand.
+
+The project was revived by Napoleon I. at the time of his Egyptian
+expedition; but, on the report of his engineer, M. Lepere, now known
+to be mistaken, that the Red Sea level was thirty feet higher than
+that of the Mediterranean, nothing further was done; nor was it
+until so late as 1847 that it was again taken up and an attempt made
+to interest the maritime powers of Europe in the scheme; but nothing
+serious was accomplished.
+
+In truth, the idea of a canal uniting the two seas, had up to this
+time been largely sentimental, if we may so express it; rather
+connected with vast schemes of conquest than founded on the vital
+needs of commercial development and the material good of the people.
+The commerce of the Mediterranean countries with India and the
+remoter East had not in those earlier times reached a point where
+such a costly undertaking as the Suez Canal could prove
+remunerative; what trade there was could be sufficiently and more
+cheaply accommodated by the Overland machinery of caravans, while
+France, Spain, and England still found the route by the Cape to
+answer all their purposes. In fact it was more than doubtful whether
+sailing-vessels, by means of which trade was then chiefly carried
+on, or even steamers of the build then employed, could use the canal
+to profit. It was believed that the advantages promised by a shorter
+route would be counterbalanced by the delays and dangers reckoned
+inseparable from the navigation of so narrow a water-way.
+
+These objections, really of a serious nature, made it difficult to
+win over the business world to a practical interest in the scheme.
+De Lesseps had been from the start the chief mover in the
+enterprise, to which he had given many years of his time, and he was
+not a man to be discouraged by repeated failures to bring others to
+his own way of thinking. His long experience, besides, in the ways
+of diplomacy had prepared him for delays and obstructions; but the
+time came, at last, when his enthusiasm, his confidence in himself,
+and his skill in dealing with men were to bring about the
+realization of his hopes.
+
+Five years, from 1849 to 1854, had been occupied by De Lesseps in
+negotiations with governments and bankers, but it was not until 1854
+that the event occurred which insured the success of his great
+undertaking. In that year, Mahomet Said Pasha became Viceroy of
+Egypt, and no sooner was he seated than he sent for De Lesseps to
+consult with him as to the possibility of carrying out the project
+of the canal. In November of the same year, a commission was signed
+at Cairo by the Viceroy charging De Lesseps with the formation of a
+company to be named the United Suez Canal Company, with a capital of
+two hundred million francs, afterward raised to three hundred
+million. From this time the affairs of the canal went on with
+comparative smoothness, and by 1858 the money necessary for the work
+had been pledged; one-half the loan was placed on the continent,
+chiefly in Paris, the other half was taken by the Viceroy.
+
+Actual work on the canal was begun in 1858 and such rapid progress was
+made that it was completed in the autumn of 1869, and opened to the
+commerce of the world with magnificent ceremonies, lasting for several
+days. Religious ceremonies, in which priests of the Catholic Church,
+the Greek Church, and the Moslem faith united, were followed by a
+naval parade representing the European powers and the United States,
+and the whole concluded with a brilliant series of fetes and
+entertainments at Cairo. As the originator of the canal, De Lesseps,
+was a Frenchman, and as France had been the chief promoter of the
+enterprise, the place of honor at these ceremonies was naturally given
+to the Empress Eugenie, who went to Cairo as the representative of the
+French nation; while to De Lesseps, as naturally, was given the next
+place, a position which he filled with equal dignity and modesty,
+winning "golden opinions from all sorts of people."
+
+The Suez Canal, though a vast and important undertaking, presented
+almost no engineering difficulties to be overcome. At Port Said, the
+Mediterranean entrance to the canal, two great piers, to serve as
+breakwaters, were built of artificial stone, projecting into the
+sea; the western, a distance of 6,940 feet, the eastern 6,020 feet,
+and enclosing an area of 450 acres; thus providing a safe and
+commodious harbor. At Suez, the Red Sea terminus of the canal, a
+less formidable defense was needed; but the necessary docks and
+buildings called for a considerable outlay.
+
+From Port Said to Suez the land is almost a dead level; the few
+sand-dunes that break the monotonous uniformity of the isthmus
+nowhere reach a greater height than fifty or sixty feet. Along the
+middle line of the isthmus there was a series of depressions; some
+shallow, and others, the bottoms of which were lower than the level
+of the sea. Although these depressions were at all times dry, yet
+they were called "lakes," and as such figure on the maps, where we
+read the names "Lake Timsah," "The Bitter Lakes" and others. They
+were found to be thickly incrusted with salt on the bottom and
+sides, indicating that at one time they had been filled with
+sea-water; it is indeed must probable that the whole isthmus was at
+a very remote period entirely submerged. In the construction of the
+canal these depressions were made to play a very important part. The
+line of the canal was carried directly through them; the shallower
+were brought to a sufficient depth by dredging; the deeper were
+simply filled with water and required nothing more for safe
+navigation than an indication of the channel by buoys. Thus, in the
+whole length of the canal, reckoned at 88 geographical miles, there
+are 66 miles of actual digging; 14 miles of dredging through the
+lakes; and 8 miles, where neither digging nor dredging was required.
+
+Water began to flow from the Mediterranean into the canal in
+February, 1869, and from the Red Sea in July of the same year; and
+by October, the lakes, and the canal in its whole length, were
+filled with water navigable by vessels of the highest class. The
+water-way thus obtained has a width at the surface varying from 197
+feet at deep cuttings, to 225 feet at lower ground. The sides slope
+to a width at the bottom of 72 feet, and an average depth of 26 feet
+is secured along the whole course. As the water is at one level from
+sea to sea, the canal is without obstruction of any kind. No locks,
+dams, or water-gates are required, and vessels enter the canal from
+either end and pursue their journey without interruption or
+detention.
+
+So great, however, was the eagerness of trade to take advantage of
+the new route, that the volume of traffic increased within a very
+short time after the opening of the canal to such an extent as to
+cause serious delays in the transit, and a number of schemes were
+brought forward for building other canals by which the two seas
+might be united. In the end, all these plans were abandoned, and it
+was decided to widen the canal sufficiently to enable it to meet the
+increased demand upon its carrying capacity. It may not be without
+interest to note the growth of traffic in the canal by a few
+figures. From 486 ships which passed through in 1870, the number
+rose to 3,100 in 1886; while the receipts increased from $1,031,875
+in 1870, to $11,541,090 in 1886. The canal, when completed, was
+found to have cost twenty million pounds sterling, a sum far in
+advance of the original estimate, but made necessary by the addition
+of several important items of expenditure that were not foreseen.
+One of these was the substitution of paid labor for the forced labor
+promised by the Pasha, but which was made impossible by public
+clamor. The Egyptian ruler discovered that he was not living in the
+times of the pyramid-building Pharaohs, when men were made
+beasts-of-burden. Another item not provided for was the necessity of
+supplying the 30,000 workmen employed on the canal with fresh water.
+For this purpose, a branch canal had to be dug, by which water could
+be brought from the Nile.
+
+[Illustration: Cutting the Canal at Panama.]
+
+The enterprise thus brought to a happy ending, has already proved of
+great service to the world. It must be looked upon not merely as a
+benefit to commerce, but as one of the many powerful agents now
+at work binding the nations closer together. It is indissolubly
+connected with the name of De Lesseps, and had he been contented
+with the fortune and the reputation gained by his work in forwarding
+the canal, few names would have shone brighter in the list of those
+who have helped on man's material well-being. But in an evil hour he
+was persuaded to lend his support to the Panama Canal scheme, and
+along with the ruined fortunes and ruined reputations sunk in that
+abyss, the name and fortune of De Lesseps and his family have
+suffered irretrievable blight.
+
+The Panama Canal was not first proposed in our day; the scheme is as
+old as the discovery of the isthmus. "The early navigators," says J.
+C. Rodrigues, "could not help noticing how near to each other were
+the two oceans, and how comparatively easy would be (they thought)
+the cutting of a canal through that narrow strip of land between
+them. The celebrated Portuguese navigator Antonio Galvaeo, as early
+as 1550, wrote an essay on the subject wherein he suggested four
+different lines, one of which was through the Lake of Nicaragua, and
+another by the Isthmus of Panama." England, in 1779, was the first
+to make an attempt to control the river and lake communications, but
+her forces sent under Nelson to begin the work were driven away by
+the terrible fever that has thus far been the best defence of the
+isthmus from attack. Various schemes were entertained by other
+nations, but, although the United States kept a jealous eye upon its
+own interests in the enterprise, it was not until the discovery of
+gold in California that it saw a vital reason for insisting upon its
+paramount claims, and the outbreak of the Civil War, with its
+threats of European intervention, made an easier communication with
+the rising States of the Pacific Coast seem an absolute necessity.
+But we moved slowly and with vacillating steps. We were divided in
+opinion as to the best route to take, as to the sort of canal that
+was desirable, as to the advisability of building any canal. When
+the war was over, the rapid increase of railroad communication with
+the Pacific Coast made public opinion still more indifferent to the
+enterprise. Meanwhile the French had started with great energy a
+scheme for a canal at Panama, and De Lesseps had been induced to
+lend his name to the scheme, and to take an active part in carrying
+it out. For this purpose he visited the United States and used his
+best diplomatic arts to induce our Government to unite with him in
+his plans. But he could do nothing on this side the water and
+returned to France to fight the battle alone. There the interest in
+the scheme, artificially excited by speculators and still further
+aided by the efforts of De Lesseps and his friends, increased to
+such an extent as to swamp all considerations of prudence. The name
+of De Lesseps, consecrated by the brilliant success of Suez, proved
+to be a powerful charm. Thousands and tens of thousands of people in
+the cities and in the country put the hard-earned savings of years
+into the venture; senators, deputies, men of high social rank in
+public life, shamelessly sold their votes and their voices to secure
+the moral aid and the money of the state to aid their gambling
+enterprise, and the newspaper press of Paris, at all times venal,
+betrayed for bribes the trust that was reposed in it.
+
+Such a state of things could not last forever. The end, long
+prophesied, came at last; the exposure was complete, and the whole
+stupendous scheme of fraud was unmasked. Something might have been
+saved from the wreck had the canal itself been a real thing so far
+as it had gone, a practical enterprise, sure in time to pay its
+investors and serve the public. But it was found that everything
+connected with the construction of the canal had been grossly
+misrepresented; the estimates of expense; the reports of the
+engineering difficulties to be overcome; the dangers from the
+climate; the bills of mortality; everything, in short, was enveloped
+in a cloud of lies. So great was the shock to public confidence that
+followed this exposure, that for a time the Republic itself seemed
+in danger of overthrow. The eyes of the world were fixed upon De
+Lesseps and his son Charles as the chief authors of the mischief,
+and when the crisis was passed, and the smoke of the upheaval had
+passed away, the Panama Canal was seen to be a ruined enterprise,
+and buried deep underneath it was the once-honored name of Ferdinand
+De Lesseps.
+
+[Signature: Clarence Cook.]
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL JOHN C. FREMONT[17]
+
+         [Footnote 17: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By JANE MARSH PARKER
+
+(1813-1890)
+
+
+In these days of rapid transit between New York and San Francisco,
+of luxurious travel across desert and mountain, the story of John
+Charles Fremont, the Pathfinder of the great West, is of peculiar
+interest, a striking illustration that the history of the world is
+in the biography of its leaders, in the pathfinders of the
+unexplored.
+
+The stormy tide of the French Revolution sent the father of John
+Charles Fremont to the New World about the time, presumably, when
+Napoleon Bonaparte was in the height of power. This M. Fremont came
+of a good family living near Lyons, France. A British man-of-war
+made prize of the ship in which he sailed for San Domingo, and he
+was carried prisoner to one of the British West India islands, his
+captivity lasting several years. Upon gaining his liberty he stopped
+at Norfolk, Va., to refill an empty purse as a teacher of French,
+and there met Anne Beverly Whiting, a leading belle of an old
+Virginia family, who became his wife. One of the illustrious
+connections of the Whitings was that with the family of George
+Washington. M. Fremont's marked fondness for travel and adventure
+was shared by his wife. They took long journeys through the wild
+southern country, stopping at Indian villages, often sleeping by
+camp-fires. On one of these expeditions, when making a halt at
+Savannah, Ga., John Charles, their first child, was born, January
+21, 1813. M. Fremont died a few years after.
+
+The boyhood of John Charles was spent in Charleston. It is well to
+remember, in a study of his life, his French blood and early
+southern environment. His first choice of a profession was the law.
+At the age of fourteen he became a student in the office of John W.
+Mitchell, who placed him under a private tutor, Dr. Roberton, who
+understood the lad thoroughly and developed his character in the
+right direction. Dr. Roberton seems to have first discovered what
+was made plain in Fremont's after-life--the makings of a poet, and
+the foresight of a prophet. Translating the story of the battle of
+Marathon in the Greek class, young Fremont catches the spirit with
+which it was told by Herodotus, and writes verses in protest of
+tyranny which are published in one of the Charleston papers. "In one
+year," wrote his tutor, "he had read four books of Caesar; Cornelius
+Nepos; Sallust; six books of Virgil; nearly all of Horace, and two
+books of Livy. In Greek--all of Graeca Minora, about half of the
+first volume of Graeca Majora, and four books of the Iliad." At
+fifteen he enters the junior class of Charleston College. At sixteen
+he is confirmed in the Episcopal Church, entertaining at that time
+thoughts of entering the ministry. His steady progress is
+interrupted by his first love affair; his absorbing passion so gets
+the better of his common sense, that he neglects his books and
+classes and is expelled from college. We next find him teaching
+higher mathematics, acting as private tutor, and devoting his
+evenings to the charge of the _Apprentice's Library_, a school in
+Charleston. At twenty years of age he received the appointment of
+teacher of mathematics, and his long connection with the United
+States Army had its beginning; his post the sloop of war Natchez. He
+was to go on a cruise of two years and more along the coast of South
+America. Here was a chance for him to unfit himself for further
+advancement, but he improved his time upon the cruise to the utmost,
+and his diligent scholarship won for him the double degree of
+bachelor and master of arts from the college from which he had been
+expelled. His application for a mathematical professorship in the
+Navy resulted in his passing the severe examination, and in an
+appointment to the frigate Independence. He declined the office,
+however, having decided to become an engineer, to join Captain
+Williams's survey of the mountain passes between South Carolina and
+Tennessee. There was talk of a railroad between Charleston and
+Cincinnati in those days.
+
+That was Fremont's first experience in exploring expeditions. The
+corps lived chiefly in camp. The survey was in wild mountainous
+regions of the unexplored South, among Indians sullen against the
+Government. Fremont liked this kind of a life. He enlisted under
+Captain Williams the second time in 1837, as assistant engineer,
+going with him upon a military reconnoissance of the Cherokee
+country in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. A war cloud was
+rising; the peril of the expedition was its charm to Fremont. "St.
+Louis was then on the border of an immense and almost unexplored
+Indian country. The caravans of merchandise going through it to
+Santa Fe, ran all the risks you can read of among Bedouins in the
+desert; the hunters and trappers, as well as the merchants, started
+off into the unknown with only one certainty, that danger was there;
+and when they came back--if they ever did--it was as from
+underworld."[18]
+
+         [Footnote 18: Souvenirs of my Time. Jessie Benton Fremont.]
+
+About this time a distinguished French geographer, M. Nicollet, was
+sent to this country by France to explore the sources of the
+Mississippi, "in the interests of geography." The United States were
+also interested in the geography of the almost unknown Northwest. M.
+Nicollet was appointed to make explorations for the United States,
+and Fremont was honored with the position of principal assistant. It
+was high time that something should be done in the interests of a
+geography made up largely from travellers' tales. That there was a
+great river, the Buena Ventura, running from the base of the Rocky
+Mountains to the Bay of San Francisco, nobody doubted, for there it
+was upon the map. The exploration of M. Nicollet, assisted by
+Fremont, awakened great interest. They were absent two years; their
+field, the territory between the Missouri and the upper rivers, as
+far north as the British line. Their report was awaited with
+impatience. Fremont came home to find that he had been appointed
+second lieutenant of the United States Topographical Engineers. As a
+scientific explorer his fame was established. The year following his
+return he spent in Washington with M. Nicollet, preparing his report
+for publication. Among those most deeply interested was Senator
+Benton, of Missouri, "Tom Benton," as he was popularly called, and
+"Old Bullion." Benton's hobby was the opening of a road for
+immigrants to the Pacific coast, as a necessary step to the
+acquisition of the territory held by Mexico--the California of
+to-day. Senator Benton's interest in the report of the young
+engineer, then about twenty-seven years of age, was surpassed by the
+young engineer's interest in the senator's daughter, Jessie, then
+only fifteen, an interest which ended in a betrothal contrary to the
+wishes of older heads, owing to Miss Benton's youth and young
+Fremont's connection with the army. The young engineer received an
+unexpected and unwelcome order, sending him to the wild frontier of
+Iowa at once, where the Sacs and Foxes, it was thought by Senator
+Benton (who had a hand in his exile), might be made to help postpone
+the marriage, at least. But banishment and red-skins were of no
+avail in breaking the engagement.
+
+Fremont performed his duty to the letter, returned to Washington,
+and married Miss Benton, October 19, 1841--a "runaway match" which
+happily brought life-long happiness to both parties--Mrs. Fremont
+becoming the connecting link, to use her own words, between her
+father's "fixed idea of the importance of the speedy acquisition of
+the Pacific coast, and its actualization through the man best fitted
+to be the pioneer of the undertaking."
+
+Less than a year after his marriage, in the summer of 1842, Fremont
+was sent by the War Department on the _first_ of the _five_
+expeditions which gave him the name of Pathfinder.
+
+The Mexican War was ripening fast. England had at that time
+financial claims upon Mexico, and Mexico was bankrupt.
+
+How to get California was a serious question, reminding United
+States diplomatists of the old Quaker's advice to his son--"Get
+money, Joseph, get money. Get it honestly if you can--_but get it_."
+Acquisition of California by settlement was vigorously encouraged.
+The best routes across the mountains must be discovered and
+surveyed. Partial explorations of routes to Oregon and California
+had been made. Emigrants had crossed the Rockies and were settled in
+the Sacramento Valley. But the geography of the Great Basin was
+inaccessible to science; the best and safest routes were only
+guessed at. Emigration was checked by rumors of perils, alas! too
+true. Fremont's order to go to the frontier beyond the Mississippi,
+was changed at his request for something more definite--the
+exploration of _the South Pass_ of the Rocky Mountains.
+
+August 8, 1842, he reached the South Pass, and then the unexplored
+was before him--untrodden ground. Kit Carson was his guide;
+twenty-eight men made up his party--Canadian voyageurs, picked men,
+well mounted and armed--only eight of the expedition driving wagons.
+Randolph Benton, a lad of twelve, Fremont's brother-in-law, was one
+of the number. The great event of this expedition, so full of
+thrilling adventure, was the first ascent of that highest peak of
+the Wind River Mountains, now called Fremont's Peak, 13,570 feet in
+height. "We mounted the barometer in the snow of the summit,"
+Fremont wrote, "and fixing a ramrod in the crevice, unfurled the
+national flag where never flag waved before.... While we were
+sitting on the rock a solitary bumble-bee came winging its flight
+from the eastern valley, and lit on the knee of one of the men."
+They run a canon in the Platte, singing a Canadian boat-song for all
+the peril.... Their boat is whirled over, food, ammunition, and
+valuable records lost. Climbing up and out of the canon, they admire
+the scenery in spite of their forlornity ... cacti and bare feet,
+hunger and thirst ... but astronomical and barometrical observations
+and drawings are made, botanical specimens collected, and a mass of
+information, making the report of this expedition[19] what has been
+called the most enduring monument of Fremont's fame. The report was
+hailed in England as well as the United States, and was followed by
+an increase of the wagon-trains across the mountains via the South
+Pass.
+
+         [Footnote 19: Fremont's Oregon and California. (1849.)]
+
+The first expedition was absent some six months. Fremont's Peak
+marks the western point of that journey.
+
+The next order from the Government sent Fremont, in the spring of
+1843, to begin exploring where he had left off in 1842; to connect
+his survey with that of Commodore Wilkes on the Pacific coast. Kit
+Carson was again his guide; many of the previous expedition
+enlisted, 32 men in all. Across the forks of the Kansas the route
+lay west of Fort Laramie, through the Medicine Butte Pass and the
+South Pass to the northern end of Great Salt Lake. Fremont's report
+of this region led the Mormons to settle at Salt Lake afterward,
+believing they would be in Mexican territory. The record of this
+expedition, like the preceding one, is a story of fearful suffering
+and heroic endurance. It is given in detail in Fremont's "Memoirs,"
+and Benton's "Thirty Years in the Senate." Deep snows on the
+mountains, no sign of the Buena Ventura River, Indians refusing to
+guide such a foolhardy venture; "skeleton men leading skeleton
+horses;" the descent into the Sacramento Valley at last, and the
+arrival at Fort Vancouver, November 1843, gives but a glimpse of the
+heroism of this second expedition. The suffering endured in reaching
+the coast was as nothing to that of the return through the great
+valley between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada, looking for the
+river they were the first to prove did not exist at all. From San
+Francisco back to Salt Lake, three thousand five hundred miles in
+eight months, not once out of the sight of snow. Geography had
+gained an important fact--the Colorado was the only river flowing
+from the Rocky Mountains on that part of the continent. For eight
+months not a word had been heard from the party, at the East, and
+then Fremont came home "thin as a shadow," and Mrs. Fremont could
+tell him that she might have prevented his going at all had she
+chosen, for an order from Washington, countermanding the expedition,
+had been received by her addressed to her husband, soon after his
+departure from St. Louis. The expedition was not too far away when
+the despatch came for her to get it to him, but she decided to
+withhold it. Because he had taken a mountain howitzer in his outfit
+he was ordered to stay at home. What a scientific expedition could
+want of a howitzer was not plain to the authorities, who seemed to
+think that hostile Indians knew at sight the difference between a
+military and a scientific party and would respect it. Mrs. Fremont
+tells the story in _The Century_ for March, 1891, how she not only
+did not send on the despatch, but a messenger instead, bidding
+Fremont "Go on at once without asking why," so fearful was she a
+duplicate order might defeat his going at all.
+
+General Scott was Commander in Chief of our Army in 1845. At his
+instance Lieutenant Fremont was made captain in the United States
+Army, and in the fall of that year was sent by the Government on
+another expedition ... this time to find the best road to the
+Pacific coast. Trouble with Mexico was growing fast. Our
+southwestern territory needed looking after; the northwestern of
+Mexico as well. Fremont was to follow the Arkansas River to its
+source in the Rocky Mountains, explore the Great Basin, the
+Cascades, and the Sierra Nevada, and define a route in a southern
+latitude for emigrants. Kit Carson was among the sixty men of this
+party, and several veterans of the two former expeditions. They
+struck out for the Sierra by the way of the Humboldt River. The war
+with Mexico broke out soon after their departure.
+
+It was another story of fearful hardship--the Sacramento Valley was
+reached at last, and Fremont hastened to Monterey to get permission
+from the Mexican authorities to make a scientific exploration of the
+region. His request was granted, and permission given to replenish
+his exhausted supplies. Why the Government revoked this permission
+almost as soon as granted, ordering him and his men to quit the
+country at once or they would be sent as prisoners to Mexico, is a
+source of much controversy between historians of that day and this.
+Fremont could not retreat into the desert with his scanty outfit. A
+rude fort was built at once on Hawk's Peak, some thirty miles from
+Monterey, and the Stars and Stripes flung out, Fremont and his men
+ready to take the consequences of such defiance. When they withdrew,
+as they did in a few days, overtures from the Mexicans followed
+them, even a proposition from the Spanish officer that Fremont
+should join with him and declare the country independent of Mexico.
+Fremont moved northward. He had reached Tlamath Lake when overtaken
+by a special messenger from Washington, the bearer of a despatch
+which had been memorized by the messenger to prevent its falling
+into the hands of the Mexicans, and which Fremont interpreted to
+mean that it was the wish of the Cabinet that he should aid in
+taking and holding California, in the event of any occurrence which
+he thought justification for so doing. The English must not
+strengthen their foothold on the coast. Someone must look after the
+interest of the United States; he was on the ground. If a crisis
+came he must act without written authority, promptly and
+discreetly--"Get it honestly if you can--_but get it_." He returned
+at once to California, and found it in a revolutionary state. The
+American settlers had hoisted what was called the Bear Flag, and
+were eager to fight for the overthrow of the Mexican authority in
+California.
+
+It is a long story, that of the conquest of California. Fremont's
+right to be called the Conqueror or the Emancipator is bitterly
+disputed by some, who claim that he attacked the Californians by
+irregular warfare, and so thwarted the conciliatory designs of the
+Government. Be that as it may, by July 5, 1846, the Bear Flag
+insurgents under Fremont had declared their independence of Mexico,
+and Fremont had been appointed Governor of California, and had
+hauled down the Bear Flag and raised the Stars and Stripes. A
+constitution had been drawn up and the territory declared to be in
+the possession of the United States. January, 1847, "the enemy"
+capitulated to Fremont. "The celerity and boldness of his movements
+in the conduct of the affair were only surpassed," says a
+contemporary, "by the moderation and clemency of his policy." "The
+decisive point," wrote George Bancroft, "in the establishment of the
+Union on a firm basis had been gained."
+
+The seizure of California in 1846 has been called, from another
+outlook, "one of the least creditable affairs in the highly
+discreditable Mexican War," and Fremont nothing more than a
+filibuster seeking private ends. California had been made ours,
+nevertheless, and Fremont had secured the prize.
+
+In the meantime the Mexican War had begun, and Commodore Stockton,
+of the U. S. Navy, was hastening to California _by sea_ under orders
+to subjugate the country. General Kearney was marching westward _by
+land_ under like orders. Of course there was a dispute about
+precedence when both were upon the ground, each asserting his right
+to command the other, both issuing orders and insisting upon the
+right to precedence. The difficulty of serving under two masters was
+experienced by Fremont. General Vallejo testified that he received
+in one day, letters from Commodore Stockton, General Kearney, and
+Colonel Fremont, each signing himself "Commander-in-Chief." Fremont
+believed he had sufficient reason for choosing to serve under
+Stockton, which he did. Upon Stockton's return to his squadron and
+Kearney's assignment to full command, Kearney brought charges
+against Fremont for mutiny and fraud, defeating his re-appointment
+as governor of the State besides. Fremont was ordered home, and it
+was said "that, like Columbus, he returned from the discovery and
+conquest of a new world, a prisoner and in disgrace." He went back
+to Washington under arrest. Great honors awaited him, nevertheless,
+his troubles only adding to his laurels. The citizens of Charleston
+gave him a sword, the ladies the gold-mounted belt of the same. He
+demanded immediate trial, which was granted, the court-martial
+lasting three months, his defence filling three sessions. He was
+pronounced guilty of mutiny, disobedience of the lawful command of a
+superior officer, and conduct to the prejudice of good order and
+military discipline--a conviction based, some said, upon technical
+grounds. President Polk remitted the penalty--dismissal from the
+army--but Fremont resigned at once, the President reluctantly
+accepting his resignation.
+
+Fremont was then thirty-four years old. As the leader of three great
+exploring expeditions he had become not only famous, but a popular
+hero. He had done much for science. He had made the most accurate
+map of the region between the one hundred and fourth meridian and
+the Pacific. He had added a large collection of botanical,
+geological, and other specimens to the national museums. He was
+eager to resume explorations of routes to the Pacific, having
+decided to settle his family in California--upon the Mariposa
+estate, in the Sacramento Valley, which he had bought in 1847,
+before the discovery of gold, seventy square miles, for $3,000, "the
+only Mexican grant that covered any part of the gold regions."
+
+Fremont's claims against the Government for expenses incurred in the
+conquest and defence of California, amounted to some $700,000, which
+was paid to him. Among those advocating the payment were Senators
+Benton, and Dix of New York. Twenty thousand copies of Fremont's map
+of Oregon and California were ordered by the Senate.
+
+It was by no means in the role of a defeated man that he started out
+upon his fourth expedition, in the fall of 1848--when the gold fever
+was at its height--a venture of his own and Colonel Benton's; its
+object, a route to the Pacific by way of the Rio Grande. Thirty-two
+men were enlisted, picked men as before. It was a superb and costly
+outfit, no less than one hundred and twenty mules. Lacking Kit
+Carson for a guide, they were lost in crossing the Rocky Mountains,
+every mule and horse and one-third of the men perishing from cold or
+starvation. At last, as he wrote home, "the mules, huddled together
+in the deep snow, froze stiff as they stood and fell over like
+blocks." The freezing men recrossed the summit in retreat, some of
+them driven to cannibalism. Wading through the snow to the waist,
+the remnant reached the home of Kit Carson at Taos, N. M., where
+Fremont reorganized the expedition, reaching the Sacramento in the
+spring of 1849.
+
+Litigation concerning his title to the Mariposa estate did not
+prevent Fremont from developing its mineral and agricultural
+resources. He engaged some twenty-eight Spaniards to work its gold
+mines upon shares. His prospects of boundless wealth were most
+flattering. The Pathfinder was now a millionaire, and in 1855 his
+title to Mariposa was established by the Supreme Court. Following
+his appointment in 1849 to run the boundary line between the United
+States and Mexico, the political party of the Territory seeking its
+admission as a free State, elected him to the United States Senate.
+Many honors were bestowed upon him at this time--the medal of the
+Royal Geographical Society of London, the Founders medal from the
+King of Prussia, an honorary membership of the Geographical Society
+of Berlin, etc.
+
+In the California State election of 1851, Fremont stood with the
+Anti-Slavery party, opposed to the extension of slavery in free
+territories. He was defeated, and went to Europe with his family in
+1852, where he was feted by royalty generally. Mrs. Fremont, in her
+"Souvenirs of My Time," has given charming glimpses of this part of
+their life. Hearing that Congress had made appropriation for further
+surveys of great Western routes, Fremont hastened home in 1853, to
+explore by a fifth expedition, what he believed to be the most
+central and practicable route. This was his second private venture.
+He would follow the path he had lost when the guide led him astray
+on his fourth expedition. He would cross the Rockies at Cochetopa
+Pass, and that in winter.
+
+He made the passage, but it was at the cost of frightful suffering;
+fifty days on frozen horse-flesh, days without even that;
+forty-eight hours without a morsel of food; the entire party
+barefooted in the snow; Fremont, in the hour of extreme peril on the
+storm-swept mountain-side, making his men take oath that, come what
+might, nothing should tempt them to cannibalism. Benton tells us how
+Fremont went straight to the spot where the guide had gone astray in
+1848, and found safe and easy passes all the way to California, upon
+the straight line of 38 deg. and 39 deg.. Great railroads of to-day follow
+the line it took those starving and half-frozen men fifty days to
+pass in that winter of 1854. For three months nothing was heard from
+the party. Fremont's arrival in San Francisco was an ovation.
+"Europe lies between Asia and America," we read in his report;
+"build the road, and America lies between Europe and Asia.... The
+iron track to San Francisco will be the thoroughfare of the world."
+
+The issues at stake in the presidential campaign of 1856 make that
+campaign the most important of any in the history of our country.
+"The question now to be decided," said Seward, "is whether a
+slave-holding class shall govern America or not." The nomination of
+John Charles Fremont as the candidate of the Republican party was
+hailed with enthusiasm at the North. The Civil War was impending.
+The lines between the defenders of slavery and its opponents were
+sharply defined. Fremont was the first nominee of the Republican
+party. The romance and adventure of his career, his upright life,
+the hero-worship of the Pacific coast, the antagonism of the South,
+gave the canvass a vitalizing force that his defeat by James
+Buchanan did not lessen, but simply changed into a new phase of
+strength. Fremont's popular vote was 1,341,000 against 1,838,000 for
+Buchanan and 874,000 for Fillmore (Know-Nothing). Fremont received
+114 electoral votes, and Buchanan 174.
+
+When the Civil War broke out, in 1861, Fremont was in Europe. He
+offered his services to the Government at once, and was appointed
+one of the four major-generals of the regular army, and given his
+choice of a command at the East or the West. He chose the West. "Who
+holds the Mississippi will hold the country by the heart," he said.
+His head-quarters were at St. Louis, where secession was rampant.
+"You must use your own judgment," wrote President Lincoln, "and do
+the best you can. I doubt if the States will ever come back."
+Fremont's policy differed from Lincoln's essentially; it lacked that
+patient, conciliatory spirit with the South which made it hard for
+many at the North to approve of the compromising policy of the Chief
+Executive, seeking to hold the neutral States from seceding.
+Fremont's hatred of the rebellion led him to deal with it just as he
+would have done with a mutiny on a perilous expedition. He
+proclaimed martial law. Rebels were to pay some penalty for
+rebellion--rebel newspapers were silenced--and what was the notable
+feature of Fremont's administration--the slaves of those in arms
+against the Government were declared emancipated; his emancipation
+proclamation antedating Lincoln's of September 22, 1862, by a little
+more than a year. But Fremont's policy was censured rather than
+approved by the country at large. Petty intrigues of officers in
+close relation with the Cabinet did much to defeat his plans. His
+fleet of gunboats was called a useless extravagance--his staff "the
+California Gang." His emancipation proclamation was pronounced
+premature and unwise by Lincoln, and revoked. Fremont again was the
+cause of an intense public partisanship, "Fremont's career at the
+West was brief," says "Patton's Concise History of the United
+States," "only one hundred days; but, being a man of military
+instincts and training, he showed in that time a sagacity which was
+not allowed fair practical development. In that brief time he was
+the first to suggest and inaugurate the following practices, then
+widely decried, but without which the war would not have been
+successfully concluded: the free use of cavalry (strongly opposed by
+General Scott and others); exchange of prisoners with the enemy;
+fortification of large cities, to allow armies to take the field;
+building of river gunboats for the interior operations at the West;
+and the emancipation of the slaves. In short, he contributed more
+than is generally credited to him." "To get rid of Fremont," says
+Major-General Sigel, "the good prospects and honor of the army were
+sacrificed to the jealousy of successful rivals." Fremont was
+relieved of his command in 1861, and shortly after appointed
+commander of the Mountain District of Virginia, Kentucky, and
+Tennessee, where he did most honorable service, Stonewall Jackson
+retreating before him after eight days' sharp skirmishing, ending in
+the battle of Cross Keys.
+
+Upon the appointment of General Pope as Commander of the Army of
+Virginia, making him Fremont's superior officer, Fremont asked to be
+relieved; his request was granted.
+
+A minority of the Republican party, the radical wing, opposed to the
+renomination of Lincoln in 1864, nominated Fremont as their
+candidate. He accepted, but finally withdrew. "Not to aid in the
+triumph of Lincoln," he said, "but to do my part toward preventing
+the election of the Democratic candidate." One of the Republican
+candidates would have to retire to save the party. Here is a subject
+for debating clubs: Was the interest of the country best served by
+Fremont's withdrawal from the canvass of 1864?
+
+After 1864 Fremont took little part in public life. He became
+absorbed in his great trans-continental railroad scheme of a line
+from Norfolk to San Diego and San Francisco, in which he ultimately
+lost his large fortune. French agents, in disposing of his bonds in
+France, made false representations. He was prosecuted by the French
+Government in 1873, and sentenced by default to fine and
+imprisonment, although no judgment was given on the merits of the
+case.
+
+The sale of his Mariposa grant brought him several millions, which
+he invested in railroads soon after the war, buying the properties
+that now constitute a large part of the Texas Pacific and other
+roads belonging to the Atchison and Santa Fe. In the great
+consolidation entailed by the foreign litigation, his confidence was
+abused, and he met with heavy and irreparable loss.
+
+From 1878 to 1881 he was Governor of Arizona. His "Memoirs" appeared
+in 1886. The closing years of his life were spent in comparative
+retirement.
+
+Not long before his sudden death in New York City July 14, 1890, at
+the age of seventy-seven years, he had been placed on the retired
+list of the United States Army with the rank of Major-General. When
+he passed away the Pathfinder of Africa was filling the public
+ear--the wedding of Stanley in Westminster Abbey was the theme of
+the hour.
+
+He was buried in Kensico Cemetery, Piermont-on-the-Hudson, about
+thirty miles from New York City, near the country home of his
+prosperous days. His widow, Jessie Benton Fremont, is at this
+writing (1893), a resident of Los Angeles, Cal. Three children
+survive their father, an unmarried daughter, Elizabeth McDowell
+Benton, Lieutenant Frank Preston Fremont, U. S. A.; and Lieutenant
+John Charles Fremont, U. S. N. After his death Mrs. Fremont demanded
+compensation for, or restitution of the property appropriated by the
+United States Government for military purposes in San Francisco
+harbor, in 1863, and for which she has never received a dollar
+(1893). The settlement of this claim in her favor is anticipated by
+the bench generally, long as justice to her has been delayed. At
+present she has a pension from the Government.
+
+Some profess to find it hard reading the character of John Charles
+Fremont, calling it enigmatical and baffling. Not so with those who
+knew him best. "His unwritten history," writes one of these, "gives
+the clew to his life."
+
+That he was a man of indomitable courage none can deny; a man of
+lofty principle and unblemished character. An atmosphere of romance
+makes him the American Chevalier.
+
+He did more than any other man to open the pathways to the Pacific
+coast. The bitter feeling engendered by the California conquest, and
+his policy in the Civil War, is not yet extinct. Partisanship has
+biassed the most of his biographers. The intense feeling underlying
+the presidential campaign of 1856 did not conduce to a fair estimate
+of the man, who has suffered hardly less from the intense admiration
+of his friends than from jealousies of rivals and foes. "I tried to
+do my duty," he would say in his old age, when asked to explain
+knotty points about the conquest.
+
+"All that he ever did for the Government," says one who knew him
+well, "was uniformly repaid with injury." That is the verdict of one
+side of the controversy. The sifting and weighing of a mass of
+conflicting evidence, preceding the final verdict of permanent
+history, is not yet ended in Fremont's case. That the outcome will
+be illumination of his fame rather than obscuration, his unswerving
+defenders do not doubt.
+
+"Though the Pathfinders die, the paths remain open."
+
+[Signature: Jane Marsh Parker.]
+
+
+
+
+DAVID LIVINGSTONE
+
+By Professor W. G. BLAIKIE, LL.D.
+
+(1813-1873)
+
+[Illustration: David Livingstone.]
+
+
+David Livingstone, missionary and traveller, was born at Blantyre,
+in Lanarkshire, March 19, 1813. His parents, who were in humble
+life, were of devout and exemplary character; his father in
+particular being a great reader, especially of travels and
+missionary intelligence, and much interested in the enterprise of
+the nineteenth century. At the age of ten David became a worker in a
+cotton-factory at Blantyre, and continued in that laborious
+occupation for fourteen years. His thirst for knowledge led him to
+read all that he could lay his hands on; he used also to attend a
+night-class, after the long hours of the factory, for the study of
+Latin. The reading of Dick's "Philosophy of a Future State" was not
+only the means of a profound impression on his mind, but kindled the
+desire to devote his life as a missionary to the service of Christ.
+
+Deeply impressed with the advantages of medical training to a
+missionary, he resolved to qualify himself in medicine, as well as
+the other attainments looked for in a missionary. The London
+Missionary Society having accepted the offer of his services, he
+went to London to complete his studies. His first desire was to
+labor in China, but, war having broken out between that country and
+Great Britain, this wish could not be fulfilled. The Rev. Robert
+Moffat's visit at this time to England turned many hearts to
+Africa--Livingstone's among the rest; ultimately he was appointed to
+that field, and, having been ordained on November 20, 1840, he set
+sail for Africa, reaching Lattakoo or Kuruman, Moffat's settlement,
+on July 31, 1841.
+
+For several years Livingstone labored as a missionary in the
+Bechuana country, at Mabotse, Chonuana, and Kolobeng, places that
+were chosen by him just because they were in the heart of
+heathenism. The conversion of Sechele, chief of the Bakwains, and
+several of his tribe, was a great encouragement. Repulsed by the
+Boers in an effort to plant native missionaries in the Transvaal, he
+directed his steps northward, discovered Lake 'Ngami and found the
+country there traversed by fine rivers and inhabited by a dense
+population. His anxiety to benefit this region led finally to his
+undertaking to explore the whole country westward to the Atlantic at
+St. Paul de Loanda, and eastward to the Indian Ocean at Quilimane.
+
+Livingstone had married at Mabotse, Mary, eldest daughter of the
+Rev. R. Moffat, and now he found it necessary to send her, with
+their children, to England, that he might be free for this vast and
+perilous undertaking. To accomplish it occupied from June 8, 1852,
+when he left Cape Town, to May 26, 1856, when he arrived at
+Quilimane. This journey was accomplished with a mere handful of
+followers, and a mere pittance of stores, amid sicknesses and other
+bodily troubles, perils, and difficulties without number. But a vast
+amount of valuable information was gathered respecting the country
+and its products, its geography and natural history, the native
+tribes, the regions that were favorable to health, and some great
+natural wonders, such as the Zambesi Falls.
+
+Livingstone, however, found that the London Missionary Society were
+not willing that he should be to so large an extent an explorer, and
+some time after returning to Britain he resigned his office as one
+of their missionaries.
+
+At home Livingstone was welcomed with extraordinary enthusiasm,
+receiving the acknowledgments and honors of scientific societies,
+universities, town councils, and other public bodies in every
+quarter of the country. In addition to these tokens of honor, the
+fifteen months spent at home were signalized by three things: the
+writing of his book, "Missionary Travels" (1857), which was received
+with the liveliest interest; his visit to Cambridge, awakening the
+enthusiasm of many of the students, and leading to the formation
+afterward of the "Universities Mission;" and his appointment by Her
+Majesty's Government as chief of an expedition for exploring the
+Zambesi and its tributaries, and the regions adjacent.
+
+On this expedition Livingstone set out on March 10, 1858. While
+successful in many ways, it led to not a little disappointment.
+Livingstone explored the Zambesi, the Shire, and the Rovuma;
+discovered Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, and came to a decided conclusion
+that Lake Nyassa and its neighborhood was the best field for both
+commercial and missionary operations. His disappointments arose from
+the grievous defects of a steamer sent out to him by Government,
+from the death of comrades and helpers, including his wife and
+Bishop Mackenzie; from the abandonment of the Universities Mission;
+from the opposition of the Portuguese authorities; but mainly from
+the distressing discovery that, encouraged by Portuguese traders,
+the slave-trade was extending in the district, and the slave-traders
+using his very discoveries to facilitate their infamous traffic. At
+length a despatch recalling the expedition was received, July 2,
+1863. Livingstone, at his own cost, had brought out a new steamer,
+but she could not be put on the lake. Depressed though he was, he
+explored the northern banks of Lake Nyassa on foot; then in his own
+vessel, and under his own seamanship, crossed the Indian Ocean to
+Bombay; and after a brief stay there, returned to Britain, reaching
+London on July 23, 1864.
+
+At home Livingstone had two objects--to expose the atrocious deeds
+of the Portuguese slave-traders, and to find means of establishing a
+settlement for missions and commerce somewhere near the head of the
+Rovuma, or wherever a suitable locality could be found. His second
+book, "The Zambesi and its Tributaries" (1865), was designed to
+further these objects. He was again received with every
+demonstration of honor and regard. A proposal was made to him, on
+the part of the Royal Geographical Society, to return to Africa and
+settle a disputed question regarding the water-shed of Central
+Africa and the sources of the Nile. He said he would go only as a
+missionary, but was willing to help to solve the geographical
+problem.
+
+He set out in August, 1865, _via_ Bombay and Zanzibar. On March 19,
+1866, he started from the latter place, first of all trying to find
+a suitable settlement, then striking westward in order to solve the
+geographical problem. Through the ill-behavior of some of his
+attendants a report of his death was circulated, but an expedition,
+headed by Mr. E. D. Young, R. N., ascertained that the report was
+false. Livingstone pressed westward amid innumerable hardships, and
+in 1869 discovered Lakes Meoro and Bangweolo. All the while he was
+doing what he could for the religious enlightenment of the natives.
+Obliged to return for rest to Ujiji, where he found his goods
+squandered, he struck westward again as far as the river Lualaba,
+thinking it might possibly be the Nile, but far from certain that it
+was not, what it proved afterward to be, the Congo. Returning after
+severe illness once more to Ujiji, Livingstone found there, Mr. H.
+M. Stanley, who had been sent to look for him by the proprietor of
+the _New York Herald_. But no consideration would induce him to
+return home till he had made one more effort to solve the
+geographical problem.
+
+He returned to Lake Bangweolo, but fell into wretched health. His
+sufferings always increasing, when he reached Chitambo's village in
+Ilala, he was obliged to give in. On the morning of May 1, 1873, he
+was found by his attendants on his knees, dead. His faithful people
+embalmed his body as best they could, carried it amid the greatest
+perils to the shore, where it was put on board a British cruiser,
+and on April 18, 1874, it was buried in Westminster Abbey.
+
+Among the remains brought home were his "Last Journals," brought
+down to within a few days of his death; these were published in
+1874. Stanley suggested the name of Livingstone for the main stream
+of the Congo (hence the Baptist Mission on the Lower Congo was
+called the "Livingstone Inland Mission"), and Mr. H. H. Johnston
+proposed that part of the East African territory acquired by Britain
+in 1890--the lower drainage area of the Zambesi--should be called
+Livingstone Land.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following letter, written by him to his children in 1853, during
+his first exploring tour, gives the character of the man, and shows
+his deep religious feeling:
+
+"_Sekeletu's Town, Linyanti, 2d October._--My dear Robert, Agnes,
+and Thomas and Oswell.--Here is another little letter for you all. I
+should like to see you much more than write to you, and speak with
+my tongue rather than with my pen, but we are far from each
+other--very, very far. Here are Scipone, and Meriye, and others who
+saw you as the first white children they ever looked at. Meriye came
+the other day and brought a round basket for Nannie. She made it of
+the leaves of the palmyra. Others put me in mind of you all by
+calling me Rananee, Rarobert, and there is a little Thomas in the
+town, and when I think of you I remember, though I am far off,
+Jesus, our good and gracious Jesus, is ever near both you and me,
+and then I pray to Him to bless you and make you good.
+
+"He is ever near. Remember this if you feel angry or naughty. Jesus
+is near you, and sees you, and He is so good and kind. When He was
+among men, those who heard him speak said, 'Never man spake like
+this man,' and we now say, 'Never did man love like Him.' You see
+little Zouga is carried on mamma's bosom. You are taken care of by
+Jesus with as much care as mamma takes care of Zouga. He is always
+watching you and keeping you in safety. It is very bad to sin, to do
+any naughty things, or speak angry or naughty words before Him.
+
+"My dear children, take Him as your Guide, your Helper, your Friend,
+and Saviour through life. Whatever you are troubled about, ask Him
+to keep you. Our God is good. We thank Him that we have such a
+Saviour and Friend as He is. Now you are little, but you will not
+always be so, hence you must learn to read, and write, and work. All
+clever men can both read and write, and Jesus needs clever men to do
+His work. Would you not like to work for Him among men? Jesus is
+wishing to send His gospel to all nations, and He needs clever men
+to do this. Would you like to serve Him? Well, you must learn now,
+and not get tired learning. After some time you will like learning
+better than playing, but you must play too in order to make your
+bodies strong and be able to serve Jesus.
+
+"I am glad to hear that you go to the academy. I hope you are
+learning fast. Don't speak Scotch. It is not so pretty as English.
+Is the Tau learning to read with mamma? I hope you are all kind to
+mamma. I saw a poor woman in a chain with many others, up at the
+Barotse. She had a little child, and both she and her child were
+very thin. See how kind Jesus was to you. No one can put you in
+chains unless you become bad. If, however, you learn bad ways,
+beginning only by saying bad words or doing little bad things, Satan
+will have you in chains for sin, and you will be hurried on in his
+bad ways till you are put into the dreadful place which God hath
+prepared for him and all who are like him. Pray to Jesus to deliver
+you from sin, give you new hearts, and make you His children. Kiss
+Zouga, mamma, and each other for me.
+
+                              "Your ever affectionate father."
+
+
+
+
+CYRUS W. FIELD[20]
+
+         [Footnote 20: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By MURAT HALSTEAD
+
+(1819-1892)
+
+[Illustration: Cyrus W. Field.]
+
+
+We, the people of the United States, have been celebrating with
+memorable pomp the discovery of our hemisphere by Christopher
+Columbus, and the elder nations and far-off islands have joined us
+in an immense festivity, honoring beyond all example of approbation
+an adventure that was a marvel, and an achievement that is immortal.
+
+All the world remembers the voyage of Columbus, that, persevered in
+through trials and perils, ended in triumph--how he studied the
+stars and the charts, and out of the dreams of ages wove the fabric
+of fancy that grew to theory, and prophecy, and history, that there
+was land beyond the Atlantic; and there is no moment in human life
+supreme above, or of more fascinating interest than, that when, from
+the deck of his caravel he saw the light on the shore of the new
+world.
+
+An incident worthy to be associated for ever with this, is that of
+Cyrus West Field, in his library, turning over a globe, after a
+conversation relative to extending a line of telegraph to
+Newfoundland, to reduce the time of the transmission of news between
+Europe and America; when the idea flashed into his mind that the
+telegraph might span the Atlantic. The next day Mr. Field wrote to
+Lieutenant Maury, of the National Observatory at Washington, and to
+Professor Morse, who invented the telegraph.
+
+The Atlantic telegraph was as truly the conception and the
+accomplishment of Mr. Field, as the discovery of America was the
+ambition and the act of Columbus; and Chief Justice Chase was not
+extravagant when he said the telegraph across the ocean was "the
+most wonderful achievement of civilization," and entitled "its
+author to a distinguished rank among benefactors;" or when he added:
+"High upon that illustrious roll will his name be placed, and there
+will it remain while oceans divide and telegraphs unite mankind."
+John Bright said: "My friend Field, the Columbus of modern times, by
+his cable has moored the New World alongside the Old."
+
+Equally lofty testimony to the splendor of his fame is that of the
+London _Times_ of August 6, 1858, saying: "Since the discovery of
+Columbus, nothing has been done in any degree comparable to the vast
+enlargement which has thus been given to the sphere of human
+activity."
+
+From the first vital spark that at last glows into the bloom of
+life, each human being is endowed with certain qualities and
+capacities, aptitudes, inspirations, possibilities, limitations; and
+if one trace the stream of blood to its remotest sources, there is
+no inconsistency in ancestry, and the science of humanity may be as
+strict within its boundaries as that of geology, or the story of
+fruitful trees, or the magnetic constellations.
+
+The four famous brothers have given the Field family an almost
+unique celebrity in this country. They were the sons of the Rev.
+David Dudley Field, of Western Massachusetts, the room-mate at Yale
+College of Jeremiah Evarts, father of William M. Evarts. Field and
+Evarts entered college together in 1798, and graduated in 1802. The
+American Fields are the descendants of John Field, the astronomer of
+Ardsley, in Yorkshire, who gained a great reputation by publishing
+astronomical tables, and died in 1587. Ardsley, it has not passed
+from the general recollection, was the name of the estate on the
+Hudson where for so many years Mr. Cyrus W. Field made his summer
+home.
+
+The family name was in the fifteenth century changed from Feld,
+Feild, Felde, and Fielde, into its present form; and John Field, the
+astronomer, was the first to introduce the Copernican system in
+England, and he received a patent in 1558, authorizing him to bear
+as a crest over his family arms, an arm issuing from clouds and
+supporting a globe. Dr. Richard Field, chaplain of Queen Elizabeth,
+was of the same family, and author of the "Book of the Church,"
+republished in four volumes at Oxford in 1843.
+
+It was the last day of autumn, November 30, 1819, at the Morgan Place,
+on a hill that sloped to the river, near Stockbridge, Mass., that
+Cyrus West Field was born. There were three older brothers--David
+Dudley, Timothy Beale, and Matthew Dickinson. The Cyrus came from a
+man of note in the town, named Cyrus Williams, and the West from Dr.
+Stephen West, the predecessor of Dr. David Dudley Field in the pulpit
+at Stockbridge. It is said of the child that he was of very delicate
+organization, so weak and frail that his body "had to be supported by
+a frame in which he could roll around the room till his limbs could
+get strength to bear him." There was, however (as his younger brother,
+Dr. Henry M. Field, the historian of the family, says in his vigorous
+English), "a nervous energy and elasticity derived from his mother,"
+that brought him up, and "once set upon his little feet, he developed
+by incessant motion," and he was noted for "restless activity," a
+characteristic of his whole life. His frame, always slight, "became
+tough and wiry, capable of great effort and great endurance." Cyrus
+was the one of the Field boys who did not go to college. When fifteen
+years of age, his brother, David Dudley, who was nearly fifteen years
+his senior, and lived until his ninetieth year, secured a place for
+him in the store of A. T. Stewart. Cyrus was a thorough country boy,
+and his mother's boy, and did not take kindly to the city at first.
+Dr. Field says: "I well remember hearing my brother Matthew tell
+mother how Cyrus had come down to the boat on which he left the city,
+and wept bitterly; and mother telling him, the next time he went to
+New York, if his little brother felt so still, to bring him home." Mr.
+Field soon grew tired of being a clerk, and launched out in the
+manufacture and sale of paper. His capital was his brains--and in
+twelve years, when he was but thirty-three years old, he was in
+possession of a handsome fortune, and thought of retiring. This,
+however, was only a phase of restlessness, and he had before him
+nearly forty years of extraordinary activity. His great works and
+trials, his counting his gains and losses by millions, his glory and
+his sorrows, were all before him. The first of his many long journeys
+was to South America, with the artist Church, who painted for him the
+"Heart of the Andes." He ascended the Magdalena River, climbed the
+Andes to Bogota, crossed to Quito, and by way of Guayaquil, in
+Ecuador, reached the western coast, and returned home October, 1853,
+in time for the golden wedding of his parents. Then he set about the
+task of retirement from business, and was in a feverish state of
+energy upon that subject, and drifted into the twelve years harassing
+struggle, from the time when, in his house in Gramercy Park, he sat
+alone and turned over the globe, and thought of a telegraphic cable
+through the Atlantic, until the tremendous task was gloriously
+finished. After writing to Maury and Morse, Mr. Field called in his
+next-door neighbor, Peter Cooper; and next called Moses Taylor, who
+listened for an hour without saying a word; and brought in his most
+intimate friend, Marshall O. Roberts; and then Mr. Chandler White (who
+died the next year and was succeeded by Wilson G. Hunt). They
+organized "The New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company,"
+Field, Cooper, Taylor, and Roberts putting in $20,000 each, and White
+a smaller sum. Field and White, with David Dudley Field as legal
+adviser, set forth for Newfoundland to get a charter, and called it a
+fishing excursion. They got a land donation, and an exclusive right to
+land cable for fifty years. There was first to build a line of
+telegraph four hundred miles through the wilderness, across the huge
+island. The land-line work lasted three years, and each of the
+parties who started by putting in $20,000, put in ten times that
+amount, and Field much more. The first cable across the Gulf of St.
+Lawrence was a failure. The second one held; and at last there rolled
+two thousand miles of tempestuous ocean, with a bottom that was a
+mystery, between the verge of the American soil and the Irish coast.
+
+Mr. Cyrus W. Field visited England as an Atlantic cable missionary,
+and addressed the Chambers of Commerce in the principal cities, and
+the members of the Government. His intense convictions and incessant
+enthusiasm made way. The scientific men of England were cautious but
+hopeful. There had been, as it happened, the year before a survey of
+the North Atlantic, disclosing conditions of the bottom of the sea,
+and they were reassuring. The Government was so far interested as to
+engage to furnish ships to lay the cable, and to guarantee L14,000 a
+year for messages sent if it proved a success--four per cent. of the
+expected cost; but the capital had to be raised by private
+enterprise, and Mr. Field visited Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester,
+and Liverpool, and subscribed one-fourth of the whole sum. His
+persistence was continued until the money was raised; but his
+friends in America were not eager for the stock, and he had to pay
+into the treasury of the company L88,000 in gold. The complete
+responsibility of Mr. Field appears at every point. He was the
+inspiration and the moving force from first to last. The work was
+strange, and there were delays and details of difficulty arising at
+every step, that a thousand times would have been insurmountable, if
+it had not been for the indomitable Field, whose tenacity even
+exceeded his impetuosity. There were two governments to be
+negotiated with to furnish ships. The cable was at last ready and on
+board--and three hundred and sixty-five years after Columbus sailed
+from the shores of Spain, Field sailed from Ireland, the
+Lord-Lieutenant, the Earl of Carlisle, making the speech of the
+occasion. The first effort was to lay the cable straight from
+Ireland to Newfoundland, and the start was made Wednesday, August 5,
+1857. Three hundred and fifty miles out the cable broke. That was
+failure; and Field's private fortune had suffered severely from his
+absence. But the next year he was again in England and another start
+was made--the ships going half-way and joining the cable and running
+both ways. The cable parted again and again, and the ships returned
+to England. All were in despair but Field, and he rallied once more,
+and another trial was made--and succeeded. The cable lasted for a
+few weeks and gave out. The people were wild with delight at the
+success, and utterly cast down and disgusted by the failure. But the
+proof was out; the thing could be done. Cables had been laid in the
+Mediterranean, and final success was in sight. A new cable was made
+and coiled on the Great Eastern--and when starting from Ireland and
+one thousand two hundred and fifty miles were out, there was a break
+where the ocean was two miles deep, and a year was lost. Then
+another cable on the Great Eastern, and in 1866 it held out all the
+way over. This was the year of the war between Prussia and Austria,
+just after the battle of Sadowa. The next thing was to find and
+splice the lost cable of the year before, and that was done, one of
+the most wonderful things that ever happened. Mr. Field told the
+story before the Chamber of Commerce of New York in November, 1866,
+saying, after the lost cable was found and spliced: "A few minutes
+of suspense and a flash told of the lightning current again set
+free--some turned their heads away and wept, others broke into
+cheers. Soon the wind arose and we were for thirty-six hours exposed
+to all the dangers of a storm on the Atlantic; yet in the fury of
+the gale, as I sat in the electrician's room, a flash of light came
+up from the deep, which, having passed to Ireland, came back to me
+in mid-ocean, telling that those so dear to me, whom I had left on
+the banks of the Hudson, were well, and following us with their
+prayers. This was like a whisper of God from the sea, bidding me
+keep heart and hope."
+
+The Great Eastern safely landed the second cable, and the two worlds
+were safely forever joined. Mr. Field said he had often, in the long
+struggle--nearly thirteen years in the forests of Newfoundland, on
+ships in stormy seas--almost accused himself of madness, sacrificing
+everything for what might prove, after all, but a dream. He received
+the thanks of Congress, with a gold medal--the grand medal of the
+French Exposition of 1867. Honors were heaped upon him. If he had
+been a British subject, he would have been made a baronet. He had
+given twelve years without accepting remuneration for time or toil,
+and his hopeful, at last haggard dream, was a marvellous golden
+reality.
+
+He was forty-seven years of age. He visited Egypt at the opening of
+the Suez Canal in 1864. He attended the millennial celebration of
+the settlement of Iceland in August, 1874. He made with his wife a
+trip around the world in 1880. He was known in all civilized lands
+as one of the foremost men of his time. All the people of the
+highest distinction in England knew and admired him as the most
+typical and celebrated of Americans. Mr. Gladstone, Mr. John Bright,
+the Duke of Argyle, Dean Stanley were his intimate friends. His
+house at Gramercy Park was the scene of a splendid hospitality.
+There gathered in his ample parlors, stored with souvenirs from
+every land, and in his dining-room, men and women of the highest
+consideration at home and abroad.
+
+The keenness of his intelligence had increased with his
+unprecedented experience. His triumphs had given him confidence in
+his executive ability, and there was nothing too daring for him to
+contemplate. His bitter lessons in going to the verge of ruin, when
+he gave the fortune of his youth to the enterprise that he carried
+to success, were amply pondered, and he resolved never again to
+allow those near and dear to him to take the chances of cruel
+fortune and the anxieties of impending want.
+
+When his years were numbered in the thirties, he was meditating
+retirement from business; and when he was in the sixties, his
+irrepressible activities carried him into the development of the
+elevated railway system on Manhattan Island, with the same ardor and
+fixed purpose with which, thirty years before, he had invaded the
+wilderness of Newfoundland to find a basis of operations for the
+conquest of the Atlantic. His faith was undaunted and without limit.
+His touch revealed new fortunes. He saw that the elevated lines that
+developed Harlem, would also improve lower New York; and the
+Washington Building, No. 1 Broadway, was the materialization of the
+thought. The intensity that was remarked in his childhood, and that
+commanded the confidence of the capitalists of England, knew no
+abatement. He had been very cautious in advising Englishmen about
+investments, but had imparted to some of them the assurance that
+United States Bonds were as sound as the English investment of
+national debt, and they profited by accepting his judgment. He
+insisted upon popularizing the elevated roads by a uniform fare of
+five cents, and had it done against strong opposition, and was more
+confident than ever in the stock, of which he had an enormous
+holding. But it took years longer than he had calculated to make
+good his plans, and in the interval came a financial storm that
+compelled him to submit to a heavy loss. He bore his misfortune with
+fortitude, and still had a competency ample for him, when there came
+a torrent of ill-fortune--the loss of his beloved wife, and the
+failure of his sons, under circumstances that bore the distressing
+stamp of insanity in one of them, a taint of madness that was in the
+blood which had been so prolific of genius. He suffered where he was
+strongest and weakest--in his love and his pride.
+
+His spirit would have been invincible if his heart had not been
+broken. No husband and father was ever more solicitous for the
+welfare of wife and children. The death of his wife, followed by the
+disasters that overtook his sons, wounded him as mortally as if a
+flight of arrows had pierced him. The very contingencies of fortune
+against which he thought he had provided with infinite painstaking,
+fell upon him as if from clouds in a sky he thought clear. His
+deepest resolution was that, after the long strain of facing the
+total loss of fortune during the dark years of the cable enterprise,
+he never again would consent to take the chances of the catastrophe
+that had haunted him, and from which he had escaped at such hazard
+that the fortunate interposition seemed miraculous; and he did not
+consciously do the wrong to himself and dear ones he had with such
+anxiety sought to avoid. His misfortunes were as incalculable as
+incurable.
+
+The family affection of the Fields is one of their distinctions, and
+the love the four brothers, known to all the world, bore each other,
+was as gentle and full of all happiness as that of children. The
+"little acts of kindness, little deeds of love," that, as the old
+hymn says, would make the world an Eden, were never wanting. The
+festivals in which they delighted were those of the family--the
+eightieth birthday of the oldest brother--the golden wedding. In his
+long travels, Mr. Field was ever thoughtful of home, and it was like
+him, giving a dinner to a company of Americans in Edinburgh, to
+telegraph to their families so that each guest found the news of
+that day, from his own fireside, in a cablegram on his plate.
+
+Mr. Field was no doubt attracted to Iceland, in 1874, by his studies
+of the northern waters; the way the world tapers off in the high
+latitudes, and the fact that Iceland must have been often in his
+mind as he studied Newfoundland and Ireland, and knew that Iceland
+was so near Greenland as to belong to the American continent, and to
+have been a stepping-stone from Norway to Labrador. He was regarded
+by the Icelanders as almost as great a man as the King of Denmark,
+who visited his remote possession at the same time; and they thought
+Field even a greater discoverer than Columbus, for they said the
+Genoese navigator got his knowledge of the land in the west from
+their ancestors, and sailed on a certainty.
+
+On the day President Garfield was shot down, he was on his way to
+Williams College, and was to dine that night with Mr. Cyrus Field at
+Ardsley, and go to the old place he called "the sweetest in the
+world" next day. A yacht was waiting to convey the President from
+Jersey City, when the news of the assassination became known. The
+President suffered mentally because he had not made adequate
+provision for his family, and Mr. Field headed a subscription list
+with a liberal sum, and in a few days had a quarter of a million
+dollars safely invested for Mrs. Garfield and her children. The
+motive of this timely and apt generosity was, first, to afford
+consolation to the dying chief magistrate.
+
+It was within the scope of the ambition of Mr. Field to span the
+Pacific as well as the Atlantic Ocean with a cable; but having
+triumphantly overcome one ocean, he failed to put a girdle round the
+earth, as De Lesseps, having succeeded with the Suez Canal--the only
+work of the age to be named with the Atlantic telegraph--failed at
+Darien.
+
+If the prosperity of Mr. Field had continued, and the light had not
+gone out in his home, he would not have been content until he had
+ransacked the globe for ways and means to have followed the sun to
+Asia with the telegraph. His footsteps point the way, and the road
+to India is westward.
+
+The golden wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus W. Field was attended by
+hundreds of those who knew and loved them, and the great double
+house of the Fields, fronting on Gramercy Park, was full of bright
+faces and glittering with lights. The historic home was soon
+darkened and made desolate. The master, the renowned victor--no name
+more certain of an honorable immortality than his--was one whom
+"unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster." His wife
+passed away at Ardsley before the deeper gloom of the storm, and he
+died there July 12, 1892. In his delirium on the morning of his
+death, he was again on the stormy coast with the cable fleet; and he
+said: "Hold those ships--do not let them sail yet." Through the
+centuries there had descended to him from the old astronomer, his
+ancestor, the far-flashing conception of enterprise and
+understanding of the splendor of destiny that was his star, and
+mingled with its light were the gentle influences of the religion of
+his fathers, always to him real and radiant. He sleeps well, amid
+the scenes where he passed his boyhood, and for which his heart
+yearned always--beside his beloved wife; and carved in the marble of
+their tomb as the last testimony to the loving heart of his
+companion, are the words: "Love is eternal." The recollection of his
+sorrows will not, as the centuries come and go, dim the beautiful
+light of his illustrious name.
+
+[Signature: Murat Halstead.]
+
+
+
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA
+
+By DONALD MACLEOD, D.D.
+
+(Born 1819-1901)
+
+[Illustration: Queen Victoria.]
+
+
+Well do I remember the effect produced on the audience of students,
+of which I was then one, when Lord Macaulay delivered his Rectorial
+address in the University of Glasgow, and when, after giving such
+pictures as he alone could paint, of the character of the four
+centuries that had closed since the university had been
+founded--each epoch presenting a scene of bloodshed and
+misgovernment--he sketched the possible future of the college, and
+anticipated the time when coming generations would tell how certain
+contemplated changes had been accomplished during the reign of "the
+Good Queen Victoria." The phrase was accentuated by an oratorical
+swing; and when it was given, the tremendous burst of enthusiasm
+showed that they who listened felt the great historian had chosen
+the right epithet, and that he intended it in the sense that, as
+some monarchs are called "Great" and some "Little," so for all time
+Victoria would be named "the Good Queen." This was said more than
+forty years ago, before Tennyson had fixed the "Household name,"
+"Albert the Good," for
+
+                          "That star
+  Which shone so close beside Thee, that ye made
+  One light together."
+
+The epoch in our history which is embraced between the years 1837
+and 1887, is unparalleled. At no time in the history of the nation,
+or of the world, has there been such rapid and beneficent progress.
+We, who are citizens of "the old country," scarcely realize the
+extent of our dominion. The Roman Empire was one-fourth its size;
+all the Russias contain an eighth less; it is sixteen times as large
+as France, and three times as large as the United States. The United
+Kingdom, with its colonies and dependencies, includes about
+one-fifth of the entire globe. The rapidity with which population
+has grown in some parts of our dominion may be measured by
+Australasia, which in 1837 had 134,059, and in 1885, 3,278,934, or
+twenty-three times as many more. When we turn from these figures to
+consider other fields of progress, we are still more amazed. It goes
+without saying that these last fifty years have seen the growth of
+railways and steamships from their infancy to their present
+world-embracing influence. The mileage of railways open in the
+United Kingdom in 1837 was about 294 miles, but a great proportion
+was worked by horses. In 1885 the mileage was 19,169, the gross
+receipts, L69,555,774; they carried about 1,275,000,000 passengers,
+and employed 367,793 men. Not a steamer had crossed the Atlantic by
+steam alone when the queen came to the throne, and her accession was
+in the year previous to that during which Wheatstone in this
+country, and Morse in America, introduced electric telegraphy. We,
+who enjoy express trains, six-penny telegrams, half-penny
+post-cards, and the parcel post, can scarcely realize that we are so
+near the time when mail-coaches and sailing-packets were almost the
+only means of conveyance, and when postage was a serious burden. The
+greatness of the changes in social life may be realized when we
+remember that, so recently as 1844, duelling was banished from the
+code of honor; that crime has diminished seventy-one per cent. since
+1837; and that while fifty years ago Government did nothing for
+education, there are now 30,000 public schools under the Privy
+Council. These facts are suggestive of the extent of the advance. Or
+if, without touching on the marvellous victories of science, we try
+to form an estimate of religious progress, and take the tables for
+Protestant missions as giving a fair indication of the zeal and
+self-sacrifice of the churches, we find that while British
+contributions in 1837 amounted to L316,610, in 1885 they reached
+L1,222,261.
+
+It may be said with truth that the progress thus indicated must have
+gone on, no matter who sat on the throne; but it would be unjust not
+to recognize the close influence which the Crown has directly and
+indirectly exercised on its advance. There has been no movement
+tending to the development of the arts and the industries of the
+country which has not enlisted the active sympathy of the royal
+family. From the first the Prince Consort recognized the important
+part which the sovereign could fulfil in reference to the peaceful
+victories of science and art. Beginning with agriculture--the
+improvement of stock and the better housing of agricultural
+laborers, we trace the effect of his constant toil in the series of
+industrial triumphs, of which the great exhibition of 1851 was the
+magnificent precursor; and, in recent years, the same kind of
+objects have always enlisted the best energies of the queen and her
+children.
+
+[Illustration: Victoria greeted as Queen.]
+
+The contrast is great and touching between the scene in Westminster
+Abbey, when, amid the pomp of a gorgeous ceremonial and the
+acclamation of her subjects, the fair girl-queen received the crown
+of Britain, and that other scene, when, after fifty years of a
+government that has been unblemished, she once more kneels in the
+same spot--a widow surrounded by her children and her children's
+children, bearing the burden of many sad as well as blessed
+memories, and encompassed with the thanksgivings of the three
+hundred millions of her subjects. We can imagine how oppressive, for
+one so loving, must then be the vision of the past, as she recalls,
+one after another, the once familiar and dear faces which greeted
+her coronation, those relatives, great ministers of state, and
+warriors of whom so few survive; and when all her happy married
+years and the years of parting and desolation appear in vivid
+retrospect. But if ever monarch had cause to bless God for His
+tender mercies, it must be she who can combine with the memory of
+her own life's hopes and trials the consciousness that, in the great
+work given her as a sovereign, she has been enabled to fulfil the
+beautiful desire of her innocent childhood, when, on her first being
+informed of her royal destiny, she indulged in no vain dream of
+power, but uttered the simple longing "to be good." That goodness
+has been her real greatness.
+
+The life of her majesty is marked by three great stages--her youth,
+her married life, and her widowhood. Each is bound to each by the
+tie of a consistent growth, passing through those experiences which
+are typical of God's education of His children, whether high or low,
+rich or poor.
+
+Her childhood, with its wise education, is very much the key to her
+after-life. Possessed naturally of a quick intellectual capacity,
+and an unusually accurate memory, a taste for music and the arts,
+and a deeply affectionate heart, she was admirably brought up by her
+mother, the Duchess of Kent, on whom the training of the future
+queen devolved from her infancy. If the education was as high as it
+was possible to afford a young and intelligent spirit, the moral
+influences were equally beneficial. The young princess, instead of
+being isolated within the formalities of a court, was allowed to
+become acquainted with the wants and sufferings of the poor, and to
+indulge her sympathies by giving them personal help. The contrast
+was a great one between the court of George IV., or even that of
+William, and the truly English home where the Duchess of Kent
+nurtured this sweet life in all that was simple, loving, and pure.
+There could scarcely have been a better school for an affectionate
+nature. All that we learn of her majesty at that time gives a
+consistent picture of great vivacity, thorough directness in her
+search after truth, warmth of heart, and considerateness for others,
+with a genuine love for all that is morally good. These were the
+characteristics which impressed those who saw her on the trying
+occasion when she was suddenly ushered into the foremost place in
+the greatest empire in the world. It was these characteristics which
+touched the hearts of the good archbishop and of the Chancellor of
+England when they announced her great destiny to the girl suddenly
+summoned from slumber. That first request, "My Lord Archbishop, pray
+for me!" revealed the depth of her character. It was the same when
+she had next day to pass through the ordeal of meeting the great
+councillors of state for the first time. Lord Melbourne, the Duke of
+Wellington, Peel, and the keen-eyed Secretary Greville, all felt the
+beautiful combination of dignity with unaffected simplicity, and of
+quick intelligence with royal courtesy. But they did not see the
+episode which followed the fatigue and excitement of the long
+formalities of the council, when the young queen rushed first of all
+to her mother's arms, there to indulge her feelings in a burst of
+tears, and then, with girlish naivete, claiming the exercise of her
+royal prerogative to procure for herself two hours of absolute
+solitude.
+
+The earlier years of her reign were happily blessed with the wise
+and beneficent influence of Lord Melbourne. His relationship to the
+youthful sovereign was more that of a father and able political
+instructor than of a formal first minister of the crown. He was too
+experienced not heartily to appreciate the beautiful character of
+his young mistress, and the interest he took in her political
+education, and in everything likely to further her prosperity and
+happiness, was evidently kindled by warm affection. She was equally
+favored in having as adviser so sagacious a relative as her uncle
+Leopold, the late King of the Belgians. The Duke of Wellington
+regarded her almost as a daughter; and there was also, ever at hand,
+another, whose trained intellect and loyal heart exercised no little
+influence on her career--Baron Stockmar--to whose lofty ideal of the
+functions of royalty, calmly balanced treatment of all questions of
+state policy, and high-toned moral sympathies, both the queen and
+the prince consort have amply expressed their indebtedness.
+
+Without touching further on the earlier period of her reign, which
+was not without many incidents of interest, we turn to the married
+years of the queen as to a bright and sunny memory.
+
+The position of an unmarried or widowed queen necessarily entails a
+peculiar loneliness. She is surrounded by the rigorous demands of
+state necessity. If she has to form a judgment upon documents
+submitted to her, there is no one so close to her and so independent
+of all other influences as to be truly an _alter ego_. Faithful
+servants of the crown may do their best to be of use, but no one of
+them can be so near as to receive such unguarded confidences as can
+be given to the husband who shares every joy and sorrow. The queen's
+married life was ideally perfect. She married the man she loved, and
+each year deepened her early affection into an admiration, a
+reverence, and a pride which elevated her love into consecration.
+
+There was no home in England made more beautiful by all that was
+tender, cultured, and noble than that in which "the blameless
+prince" fulfilled his heroic career of duty, and shed the bright
+light of his joyous, affectionate, and keenly intellectual life.
+There were few homes in which a greater amount of trying and anxious
+work was more systematically accomplished, or in which there was a
+more exquisite blending of hard thinking with the enjoyment of the
+fine arts and the fulness of loving family happiness. We have
+picture after picture given us in the life of the Prince Consort
+which puts us in touch with these brilliant years, when the queen
+and he were never parted but for one or two brief intervals. Early
+hours of close labor were followed by a genial and hearty
+relaxation, and at every turn the wife and sovereign felt the
+blessedness of that presence which ministered to her in sickness
+with the gentleness of a woman, and which she leaned upon in hours
+of difficulty with complete trust in the strength and trueness of
+his wise intellect. There was no decrease on either side in those
+feelings and utterances of feeling which are so beautiful when they
+carry into after years the warmth of the first attachment, only
+hallowed and deepened by experience.
+
+[Illustration: Windsor Castle.]
+
+There were many fresh features in the kind of life which was
+introduced by the queen and the consort into the habits of the
+court. Among these none were more marked than the breaking up of
+that monotony which the restrictions that hitherto prevailed as to
+the residence of the royal family in one or two state palaces
+entailed. We can well understand how the Empress Eugenie should have
+found the Tuileries, in spite of its grandeur, no better than "_une
+belle prison_," and her delight at the comparative freedom she
+enjoyed at Windsor. The queen and Prince Consort inaugurated a new
+era in the customs of the court by taking advantage of the
+facilities afforded by modern methods of conveyance. Scarcely any
+part of the country celebrated for scenery, or any town famous for
+its industries, remained unvisited by them.
+
+The beneficial effects of these journeys were great. Loyalty is to a
+large extent a personal matter, and is necessarily deepened when the
+representative of the state not only possesses moral dignity of
+character but comes frequently into contact with the people. It is
+also of use to the crown that its wearer should know, from actual
+observation, the conditions of life in the country. It is in the
+light of this mutual action of acquaintance between prince and
+people that we estimate the value of that knowledge which the Prince
+of Wales, his brothers, and his sons have gained of so many parts of
+the empire. The Prince Consort felt keenly the use of these
+influences. "How important and beneficent," he once said, "is the
+part given to the royal family of England to act in the development
+of those distant and rising countries, who recognize in the British
+crown and their allegiance to it, their supreme bond of union with
+the mother country and to each other!"
+
+During each year of their married life the queen and Prince Consort
+went on some interesting tour. In England, Oxford and Cambridge,
+Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, received royal visits,
+while such historical houses as Chatsworth, Hatfield, Stowe, and
+Strathfieldsay were honored by their presence. Ireland was thrice
+visited. Wales more than once. The first visit to Scotland was made
+in 1842, another in 1844, and from 1847 only one year passed without
+a long residence in the north--first at Ardverachie, on Loch Laggan,
+and then at what was to be their Highland home on Deeside. Repeated
+visits were also made to the Continent, sometimes in state and
+sometimes in as much privacy as could be commanded.
+
+It is when we come to this bright time, so full of fresh interest
+and of a delightful freedom, that we have the advantage of the
+queen's own "Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands."
+Her visit to Edinburgh in 1842, and the drive by Birnam and
+Aberfeldy to Taymouth, and the splendor of the reception, when, amid
+the cheers of a thousand Highlanders and the wild notes of the
+bagpipes, she was welcomed by Lord Breadalbane, evidently stirred
+every feeling of romance. "It seemed," she wrote, "as if a great
+chieftain of olden feudal times was receiving his sovereign." It
+appeared like a new world, when, throwing off for a time the
+restrictions of state, she found herself at Blair two years
+afterward, climbing the great hills of Atholl, and from the top of
+Tulloch looking forth on the panorama of mountain and glen. "It was
+quite romantic; here we were with only this Highlander behind us
+holding the ponies, not a house, not a creature near us but the
+pretty Highland sheep, with their horns and black faces. It was the
+most delightful, most romantic, ride and walk I ever had." These
+early visits to Scotland inspired her with her love for the
+Highlands and the Highlanders. She found there quite a world of
+poetry. The majestic scenery, the fresh, bracing air, the
+picturesqueness of the kilted gillies, the piping and the dancing,
+and the long days among the heather, recalled scenes which Sir
+Walter Scott has glorified for all time, and which are especially
+identified with the fortunes of the unhappy Stuarts, of whom she is
+now the nearest representative.
+
+It was in 1848 that the court proceeded for the first time to
+Balmoral, then a picturesque but small castle. The air of Deeside
+had been recommended by Sir James Clark, the queen's physician, and
+his anticipation of the benefits to be derived from residence there
+was so completely realized that although four years passed before
+the property was actually purchased, yet preparations were made for
+establishing there a royal home. Plans for the future castle and for
+laying out the grounds were gone into by the prince with keen
+delight. "All has become my dear Albert's own creation, own work,
+own building, own laying out, as at Osborne; and his great taste and
+the impress of his dear hand have been stamped everywhere."
+
+It was here that the queen and the Prince Consort enjoyed for more
+than twelve years a delightful freedom, mingling with their people,
+devising the wisest methods for insuring their well-being, going
+with them to worship in their plain (very plain!) parish church, and
+being to each and all unaffectedly sincere friends. Every spot
+around soon became consecrated by some sweet association. Every
+great family event had its commemoration amid the scenery around the
+castle; though many a cairn, once raised in joy, is now, alas! a
+monument of sorrow. The life at Balmoral was in every sense
+beneficial. There never has been there the kind of relaxation that
+comes from idleness. Systematic work has been always maintained at
+Balmoral as at Windsor. Early hours in the fresh morning and a
+regular arrangement of time during the day have given room for the
+constant business of the crown; but every now and then there were
+glorious "outings," whether for sport or for some far-reaching
+expedition, which gave fresh zest to happy and united toil.
+
+There is more than one characteristic of the queen which may recall
+to Scotchmen the history of their own Stuarts, and among these is
+her enjoyment of expeditions _incognita_. The Prince Consort, with
+his simple German heart, entered fully into the "fun" of such
+journeys, as, starting off on long rides across mountain-passes and
+through swollen burns and streams, lunching on heights from which
+they could gaze far and wide over mountain and strath, they would
+reach some little roadside inn, and there, assuming a feigned name,
+had the delight of feeling themselves "private people," while the
+simple fare and the ridiculous _contretemps_ which frequently
+occurred were enjoyed the more keenly because of their contrast to
+accustomed state. And during all these years their domestic life was
+unbroken by any great family sorrow. It was not till a year before
+her great bereavement that the queen lost her mother, the Duchess of
+Kent. Few can read the account of that sorrowful parting without
+being drawn nearer to the sovereign by the tie of a common humanity,
+so deep and tender is the affection that is revealed.
+
+But till 1861 the queen was surrounded by all those who were dearest
+to her, and she and the prince shared the sweet task of
+superintending their children's education. Few parents more
+anxiously considered the best methods for securing a sound moral and
+religious training. "The greatest maxim of all," writes the queen,
+"is that the children shall be brought up as simply and in as
+domestic a way as possible, that (without interfering with their
+lessons) they should be as much as possible with their parents, and
+learn to place their greatest confidence in them in all things." As
+to religious training, the queen's conviction was that it is best
+when given to a child "day by day at his mother's knee." It was only
+the great pressure of public duty which rendered it impossible for
+her to fulfil her part so completely as she desired. "It is a hard
+case for me," her majesty writes, in reference to the princess
+royal, "that my occupations prevent me being with her when she says
+her prayers."
+
+The religious convictions of the queen and the Prince Consort were
+deep. They both cared little for those mere accidents and
+conventionalities of religion which so many magnify into essentials.
+The prince, eminently devout, insisted on the realities of religion.
+"We want not what is safe, but true," was his commentary on the
+exaggerated outcry against "Essays and Reviews." "The Gospel, and
+the unfettered right to its use," was his claim for Protestantism.
+For his own spirit, like that of the queen, was truly religious. The
+quiet evenings spent together before communion, and the directness
+and reverence with which both served God were combined with an utter
+abhorrence of all intolerance. Such qualities are generally
+misunderstood by the narrow-minded, who have only their own
+"shibboleths" to test all faith, and the one Church--whatever it may
+be--that they regard as "true." The queen and the prince rose above
+such distinctions; they shared the Catholicism of St. Paul, "Grace
+be with all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity."
+
+But these bright and happy years were doomed to a sudden ending. It
+is only when we have realized all that her husband was to her that
+we can measure how fearful was the blow to her loving heart when he
+who was her pride and her constant companion was laid low. We may
+well feel what a shattering it brought to all that hitherto had
+enriched her life, and how very desolate her position became when
+she was left in loneliness on the throne, a widow separated by her
+queendom from many of those supports which others find near them,
+but from which she was deprived by her position. "Fourteen happy and
+blessed years have passed," she wrote, in 1854, "and I confidently
+trust many more will pass, and find us in old age as we now are,
+happily and devotedly united. Trials we must have, but what are they
+if we are together?" In God's wisdom that hope was not to be
+realized, and in 1861 the stroke fell, and it fell with crushing
+power.
+
+It is not for us to lift the curtain of sorrow that fell like a
+funeral pall over the first years of her widowhood. For many a day
+it seemed as if the grief was more than she could bear, and although
+she was sustained through it all by God's grace, and supported by
+the sympathy of the nation, yet it was naturally a long-continued
+and absorbing sorrow. Other blows have fallen since then. The tender
+and wise Princess Alice, and the thoughtful and cultured Duke of
+Albany, have also been gathered to their rest; and the queen has had
+to mourn over one after another of her most faithful servants taken
+from her. But the hallowing hand of time, the soothing remembrance
+of unspeakable mercies, and the call to noble duty, have done much
+to restore the strength, if not the joy, of former days. Her people
+rejoice, and the influence of the Crown is enormously strengthened,
+when in these later years the queen has been able once more to
+mingle with the nation.
+
+When we touch on the third period of her life--which may well be
+termed that of sorrow, although brightened by many happy events in
+the domestic life of her children--we reach times that are familiar
+to every reader. These have been years in which the cares of state
+have often been exceedingly burdensome. The days of anxiety during
+the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny have more than once had their
+counterpart. Afghanistan, Zululand with its Isandula, and the
+Transvaal War with its Majuba Hill, Egypt, and the Soudan, brought
+hours of sore anxiety to the sovereign; but they were probably not
+more harassing to intellect and heart than the months of difficult
+diplomacy which the threatening aspect of European politics
+frequently laid upon Government.
+
+I may say in passing that no portrait of her appears to me to be
+quite satisfactory. They usually have only one expression, that of
+sadness and thoughtfulness, and so far they give a true
+representation; for when there is nothing to rouse her interest and
+when she is silent, that look of sadness is doubtless what chiefly
+impresses one. Her face then bears the traces of weary thought and
+of trying sorrow; but when she is engaged in conversation, and
+especially if her keen sense of humor has been touched, her
+countenance becomes lit with an exceedingly engaging brightness, or
+beams with heartiest laughter.
+
+Her life at Balmoral since her great sorrow maintains, as far as may
+be, the traditions of the happy past. She still makes expeditions,
+_cognita_ or _incognita_, sometimes to the scenes of former
+enjoyment or to new places of interest. She has in this way visited
+Blair, Dunkeld, Invermark, Glenfiddich, Invertrossachs, Dunrobin,
+Inverlochy, Inverary, Loch Marll, and Broxmouth.
+
+The queen, among her people at Balmoral, gives a splendid example to
+every landlord. "The first lady in the land" is the most gracious
+mistress possible. Her interest is no condescending "make-believe,"
+as we sometimes find it in the case of others, who seek a certain
+popularity among their dependents by showing spasmodic attentions
+which it is difficult to harmonize with a prevailing indifference.
+With the queen it is the unaffected care of one who really loves her
+people, and who is keenly touched by all that touches them. She
+knows them all by name, and in the times of their sorrow they
+experience from her a personal sympathy peculiarly soothing. There
+is indeed no part of the volumes she has given us more surprising
+than the minute knowledge she there shows of all the people who have
+been in any way connected with her. The gillies, guides, and
+gamekeepers, the maids who have served her, the attendants,
+coachmen, and footmen, are seldom mentioned without some notice of
+their lives being recorded as faithfully as is the case with peers
+and peeresses. How few mistresses are there who, burdened as she is
+with duty, would thus hold in kindest remembrance each faithful
+servant, become acquainted with their circumstances, and provide for
+them in age or in trial with generous solicitude. It is this rich
+humanity of feeling that is her noblest characteristic. The public
+are accustomed to see messages of sympathy sent by the queen in
+cases of disaster and of accident, but they cannot know how truly
+those calamities fall upon her own heart. As far as her life in the
+Highlands is concerned, she is now perhaps the best specimen we have
+of what the old Highland chieftain used to be, only that in her case
+we find the benefits of paternal government without its harsh
+severities. There is the same frank and hearty attachment to her
+dependents, the same intimate knowledge of each one of them, the
+same recognition of services. It is a queenly quality to recognize
+what is worthy, no matter what the rank may be. It was from this she
+placed so much confidence in her faithful attendant, John Brown. Her
+great kindness to him was her own generous interpretation of the
+long and loyal services of one who, for more than thirty years, had
+been personal attendant on the Prince Consort and herself, leading
+her pony during many a long day upon the hills, watching over her
+safety in London as well as on Deeside, and who, on more than one
+occasion, protected her from peril. "His attention, care and
+faithfulness cannot be exceeded," she writes in the first volume of
+the "Leaves," "and the state of my health, which of late years has
+been sorely tried and weakened, renders such qualifications most
+valuable."
+
+
+
+
+FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
+
+By LIZZIE ALLDRIDGE
+
+(Born 1820)
+
+
+A very distinguished lady nurse, who has been in half the hospitals
+in Europe, once said to me: "To Florence Nightingale, who was my own
+first teacher and inspirer, we owe the wonderful change that has
+taken place in the public mind with regard to nursing. When I first
+began my hospital training, hospital nursing was thought to be a
+profession which no decent woman of any rank could follow. If a
+servant turned nurse, it was supposed she did so because she had
+lost her character. We have changed all that now. Modern nursing
+owes its first impulse to Florence Nightingale."
+
+[Illustration: Florence Nightingale.]
+
+I don't suppose that any of my young readers have ever seen a
+hospital nurse of the now nearly extinct Gamp type; but I have. I
+have seen her, coarse-faced, thick of limb, heavy of foot, brutal in
+speech, crawling up and down the stairs or about the wards, in
+dresses and aprons that made me feel (although quite well and with a
+good healthy appetite) as if I would not have my good dinner just
+then. These were the old-fashioned "Sairey Gamps." But Florence
+Nightingale has been too strong for even the immortal "Sairey." Go
+now through the corridors and wards of a modern hospital; every
+nurse you meet will be neat and trim, with spotless dress and cap
+and apron, moving quickly but quietly to and fro, doing her work
+with kindness and intelligence.
+
+It was in 1820, the year George the Third's long life quite faded
+out, that the younger of the two daughters of William Shore
+Nightingale was born at Florence, and named after that lovely city.
+
+Mr. Nightingale, of Embley Park, Hampshire, and the Lea Hurst,
+Derbyshire, was a wealthy land-owner. He was of the Shores of
+Derbyshire, but inherited the fortune with the name of Nightingale
+through his mother. Lea Hurst, where Miss Nightingale passed the
+summer months of each year, is situated in the Matlock district,
+among bold masses of limestone rock, gray walls, full of fossils,
+covered with moss and lichen, with the changeful river Derwent now
+dashing over its stony bed, now quietly winding between little dales
+with clefts and dingles. Those who have travelled by the Derby and
+Buxton Railway will remember the narrow valleys, the mountain
+streams, the wide spans of high moorland, the distant ranges of
+hills beyond the hills of the district. Lea Hurst, a gable-ended
+house, standing among its own woods and commanding wonderful views
+of the Peak country, is about two miles from Cromford station.
+
+At Lea Hurst much of Florence Nightingale's childhood was passed.
+There she early developed that intense love for every living
+suffering thing, that grew with her growth, until it became the
+master-passion of her life.
+
+Florence Nightingale always retained her belief in animals. Many
+years after her name was known all over the world, she wrote: "A
+small pet animal is often an excellent companion for the sick, for
+long chronic cases especially." An invalid, in giving an account of
+his nursing by a nurse and a dog, infinitely preferred that of the
+dog. "Above all," he said, "it did not talk." Even Florence
+Nightingale's maimed dolls were tenderly nursed and bandaged.
+
+Mr. Nightingale was a man singularly in advance of his time as
+regards the training of girls. The "higher education of women" was
+unknown to the general public in those days, but not to Mr.
+Nightingale. His daughter was taught mathematics, and studied the
+classics, history, and modern languages under her father's
+guidance. These last were afterward of the greatest use to her in
+the Crimea. But she was no "learned lady;" only a well-educated
+Englishwoman all round. She was an excellent musician, and skilful
+in work with the needle; and the delicate trained touch thus
+acquired stood her in good stead, for the soldiers used to say that
+a wound which Miss Nightingale dressed "was sure to get well."
+
+She felt a strong craving for work, more even than the schools and
+cottages, the care of the young, the sick, and the aged (in which
+she followed her mother's example) could afford her at her father's
+home. Mrs. Browning tells us to
+
+                 "Get leave to work
+  In this world; 'tis the best you get at all."
+
+Florence Nightingale not only got leave to work, but did so, very
+quietly but very persistently. And so she became a pioneer for less
+courageous souls, and won for them also "leave to work." Taught by
+her father, she soon learned to distinguish between what was really
+good work and which mere make-believe. She had many opportunities,
+even as a child, of seeing really fine, artistic work both in
+science and art. She set up a high standard, and was never satisfied
+with anything short of the best, either in herself or others. It is
+a grand thing to know good work when you see it.
+
+The love of work, however, with Florence Nightingale, always went
+hand in hand with that love for every living thing in God's world
+which was born with her and which was never crowded out by all this
+education. As she grew up she more and more felt that helpfulness
+was the first law of her being; but her reason and intellect having
+been so carefully trained, she was thoroughly persuaded that, in
+order to help effectually, one must know thoroughly both the cause
+of suffering and its radical cure.
+
+The study of nursing had an irresistible attraction for her. Few
+people in England at that time valued nursing. Florence Nightingale
+was convinced that indifference arose from the all but absolute
+ignorance of what nursing should be, and she set herself to acquire
+the necessary knowledge to enable her to carry it out in the very
+best and most scientific way. She never lost an opportunity of
+visiting a hospital, either at home or abroad. She gave up the life
+of so-called "pleasure," which it was then considered a young woman
+of her position ought to lead, and after having very carefully
+examined innumerable nursing institutions at home and abroad, at
+length went to the well-known Pastor Fliedner's Deaconesses, at
+Kaiserswerth, where she remained for several months.
+
+After leaving Kaiserswerth, Miss Nightingale was for a while with
+the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, in Paris, so anxious was she to
+see how nursing was carried on under many different systems. It was
+during 1851, the year of the first Great Exhibition, that she was
+thus fitting herself practically for the great task that lay before
+her in the not very distant future.
+
+On her return to England, Miss Nightingale found a patient that
+required all her time and help of every kind. This patient was none
+other than the Sanatorium in Harley Street for gentlewomen of
+limited means. Into the saving of this valuable institution Miss
+Nightingale threw all her energy, and for two or three years, hidden
+away from the outside world, she was working day and night for her
+poor suffering ladies, until at length she was able to feel that the
+Sanatorium was not only in good health, but on the high road to
+permanent success.
+
+Florence Nightingale's own health, however, gave way under the
+long-continued strain of anxiety and fatigue; she was obliged to
+leave the invalids for whom she had done so much, and go home for
+the rest and change she so sorely needed.
+
+Now, while Miss Nightingale had been quietly getting "Harley Street"
+into working order, the gravest and most terrible changes had taken
+place in the affairs of the nation, and not only in those of
+England, but in those of the whole of Europe. In 1851, when the
+first Great Exhibition was opened, all was peace--the long peace of
+forty years was still unbroken--people said it never was to be
+broken again, and that wars and rumors of wars had come to an end.
+So much for human foreknowledge. By the autumn of 1854, the horrors
+of the Crimean war had reached their climax. The _Times_ was full,
+day by day, of the most thrilling and appalling descriptions of the
+hideous sufferings of our brave men--sufferings caused quite as much
+by the utter breakdown of the sanitary administration as by even the
+deadly battles and trenchwork; while every post was bringing
+agonizing private letters appealing for help.
+
+Men were wounded in the Crimea, the hospitals were far off at
+Scutari, the wide and stormy Black Sea had to be crossed to reach
+them; the stores of food, clothing, and medicine that might have
+saved many a life were at Varna, or lost in the Black Prince; the
+state of the great Barrack Hospital at Scutari was indescribably
+horrible; everybody was frantic to rush to the relief; no one knew
+what best to do; public feeling was at fever-heat. How could it be
+otherwise when William Howard Russell, the _Times_ correspondent,
+was constantly writing such true but heartrending letters as this:
+
+"The commonest accessories of a hospital are wanting; there is not
+the least attention paid to decency or cleanliness; the stench is
+appalling; the fetid air can barely struggle out to taint the
+atmosphere, save through the chinks in the walls and roofs; and for
+all I can observe, these men die without the least effort being made
+to save them. Here they lie, just as they were let gently down on
+the ground by the poor fellows, their comrades, who brought them on
+their backs from the camp with the greatest tenderness, but who are
+not allowed to remain with them. The sick appear to be tended by the
+sick, and the dying by the dying."
+
+Miss Nightingale, who was then recovering from her Harley Street
+nursing, deeply felt the intensity of the crisis that was moving the
+whole nation; but, whereas the panic had driven most of the kind
+people who were so eager to help the army, nearly "off their heads,"
+it only made hers the cooler and clearer. She wrote, offering her
+services to Mr. Sidney Herbert, afterward Lord Herbert, the minister
+for war, who, together with his wife, had long known her, and had
+recognized her wonderful organizing faculties, and her great
+practical experience.
+
+It was on October 15th that she wrote to Mr. Herbert. On the very
+same day the minister had written to her. Their letters crossed. Mr.
+Herbert, who had himself given much attention to military hospitals,
+laid before Miss Nightingale, in his now historical letter, a plan
+for nursing the sick and wounded at Scutari.
+
+"There is, as far as I know," he wrote, "only one person in England
+capable of organizing and directing such a plan, and I have been
+several times on the point of asking you if you would be disposed to
+make the attempt. That it will be difficult to form a corps of
+nurses, no one knows better than yourself."
+
+After specifying the difficulty in finding not only good nurses, but
+good nurses who would be willing to submit to authority, he goes on:
+"I have this simple question to put to you. Could you go out
+yourself and take charge of everything? It is, of course, understood
+that you will have absolute authority over all the nurses, unlimited
+power to draw on the Government for all you judge necessary to the
+success of your mission; and I think I may assure you of the
+co-operation of the medical staff. Your personal qualities, your
+knowledge, and your authority in administrative affairs, all fit you
+for this position."
+
+Miss Nightingale at once concurred in Mr. Herbert's proposal. The
+materials for a staff of good nurses did not exist, and she had to
+put up with the best that could be gathered on such short notice.
+
+On the 21st, a letter by Mr. Herbert, from the War Office, told the
+world that "Miss Nightingale, accompanied by thirty-four nurses,
+will leave this evening. Miss Nightingale, who has, I believe,
+greater practical experience of hospital administration and
+treatment than any other lady in this country, has, with a
+self-devotion for which I have no words to express my gratitude,
+undertaken this noble but arduous work."
+
+A couple of days later there was a paragraph in the _Times_ from
+Miss Nightingale herself, referring to the gifts for the soldiers
+that had been offered so lavishly: "Miss Nightingale neither invites
+nor refuses the generous offers. Her banking account is open at
+Messrs. Coutts's." On October 30th, the _Times_ republished from the
+_Examiner_ a letter, headed, "Who is Miss Nightingale?" and signed
+"One who has known her." Then was made known to the British public
+for the first time who the woman that had gone to the aid of the
+sick and wounded really was; then it was shown that she was no
+hospital matron, but a young and singularly graceful and
+accomplished gentlewoman of wealth and position, who had, not in a
+moment of national enthusiasm, but as the set purpose of her life
+from girlhood up, devoted herself to the studying of God's great and
+good laws of health, and to trying to apply them to the help of her
+suffering fellow-creatures.
+
+From October 30, 1854, the heroine of the Crimean war was Florence
+Nightingale, and the heroine of that war will she be while the
+English tongue exists and English history is read. The national
+enthusiasm for her was at once intense, and it grew deeper and more
+intense as week by week revealed her powers. "Less talent and energy
+of character, less singleness of purpose and devotion, could never
+have combined the heterogeneous elements which she gathered together
+in one common work and labor of love."
+
+I met the other day a lady who saw something of Miss Nightingale
+just before she went out to the East. This lady tells me that Miss
+Nightingale was then most graceful in appearance, tall and slight,
+very quiet and still. At first sight her earnest face struck one as
+cold; but when she began to speak she grew very animated, and her
+dark eyes shone out with a peculiarly star-like brightness.
+
+This was the woman whose starting for the East was at once felt to
+be the beginning of better things; but so prejudiced were many good
+English people against women-nurses for soldiers, that Mrs. Jameson,
+writing at the time, calls the scheme "an undertaking wholly new to
+our English customs, much at variance with the usual education given
+to women in this country." She, sensible woman, one in advance of
+her day, hoped it would succeed, but hoped rather faintly. "If it
+succeeds," she goes on, "it will be the true, the lasting glory of
+Florence Nightingale and her band of devoted assistants, that they
+have broken down a 'Chinese wall of prejudices,' religious, social,
+professional, and have established a precedent which will, indeed,
+multiply the good to all time."
+
+The little band of nurses crossed the Channel to Boulogne, where
+they found the fisherwomen eager for the honor of carrying their
+luggage to the railway. This display, however, seemed to Miss
+Nightingale to be so out of keeping with the deep gravity of her
+mission, that, at her wish, it was not repeated at any of the
+stopping-places during the route. The Vectis took the nurses across
+the Mediterranean, and a terribly rough passage they had. On
+November 5th, the very day on which the battle of Inkermann was
+fought, the ship arrived at Scutari.
+
+Miss Nightingale and her nurses landed during the afternoon, and it
+was remarked at the time that their neat black dresses formed a
+strong contrast to those of the usual hospital attendants.
+
+The great Barrack Hospital at Scutari, which had been lent to the
+British by the Turkish Government, was an enormous quadrangular
+building, a quarter of a mile each way, with square towers at each
+angle. It stood on the Asiatic shore a hundred feet above the
+Bosphorus. Another large hospital stood near; the whole, at times,
+containing as many as four thousand men. The whole were placed under
+Miss Nightingale's care. The nurses were lodged in the southeast
+tower.
+
+The extent of corridors in the great hospital, story above story, in
+which the sick and wounded were at first laid on wretched
+palliasses, as close together as they could be placed, made her
+inspection and care most difficult. There were two rows of
+mattresses in the corridors, where two persons could hardly pass
+abreast between foot and foot. The mortality, when the _Times_ first
+took up the cause of the sick and wounded, was enormous. In the
+Crimea itself there was not half the mortality in the tents,
+horrible as were the sufferings and privations of the men there.
+
+"The whole of yesterday," writes one of the nurses a few days after
+they had arrived, "one could only forget one's own existence, for it
+was spent, first in sewing the men's mattresses together, and then
+in washing them, and assisting the surgeons, when we could, in
+dressing their ghastly wounds after their five days' confinement on
+board ship, during which space their wounds had not been dressed.
+Hundreds of men with fever, dysentery, and cholera (the wounded were
+the smaller portion) filled the wards in succession, from the
+overcrowded transports."
+
+Miss Nightingale's position was a most difficult one. Everything was
+in disorder, and every official was extremely jealous of
+interference. Miss Nightingale, however, at once impressed upon her
+staff the duty of obeying the doctors' orders, as she did herself.
+An invalids' kitchen was established immediately by her to
+supplement the rations. A laundry was added; the nursing itself,
+was, however, the most difficult and important part of the work.
+
+But it would take far too much space to give all the details of that
+kind but strict administration which brought comparative comfort and
+a low death-rate into the Scutari hospitals. During a year and a
+half the labor of getting the hospitals into working order was
+enormous, but before the peace arrived they were models of what such
+institutions may be.
+
+Speaking of Miss Nightingale in the hospital at Scutari, the _Times_
+correspondent wrote: "Wherever there is disease in its most
+dangerous form, and the hand of the spoiler distressingly nigh,
+there is that incomparable woman sure to be seen; her benignant
+presence is an influence of good comfort even amid the struggles of
+expiring nature. She is a ministering angel, without any
+exaggeration, in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides
+quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow's face softens with
+gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have
+retired for the night, and silence and darkness have settled down
+upon these miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed, alone, with
+a little lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds. With the
+heart of a true woman and the manner of a lady, accomplished and
+refined beyond most of her sex, she combines a surprising calmness
+of judgment and promptitude and decision of character. The popular
+instinct was not mistaken, which, when she set out from England on
+her mission of mercy, hailed her as a heroine; I trust that she may
+not earn her title to a higher, though sadder, appellation. No one
+who has observed her fragile figure and delicate health can avoid
+misgivings lest these should fail."
+
+Public feeling bubbled up into poetry. Even doggerel ballads sung
+about the streets praised
+
+  "The Nightingale of the East,
+   For her heart it means good."
+
+Among many others, Longfellow wrote the charming poem, "The Lady
+with the Lamp," so beautifully illustrated by the statuette of
+Florence Nightingale at St Thomas's Hospital, suggested by the
+well-known incident recorded in a soldier's letter: "She would speak
+to one and another, and nod and smile to many more; but she could
+not do it to all, you know, for we lay there by hundreds; but we
+could kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on our pillows
+again, content."
+
+  "Lo! in that house of misery
+  A lady with a lamp I see
+      Pass through the glimmering gloom.
+      And flit from room to room.
+
+  "And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
+  The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
+      Her shadow as it falls
+      Upon the darkening walls.
+
+  "On England's annals, through the long
+  Hereafter of her speech and song.
+      A light its rays shall cast
+      From portals of the past.
+
+  "A lady with a lamp shall stand
+  In the great history of the land.
+      A noble type of good
+      Heroic womanhood."
+
+In the following spring Miss Nightingale crossed the Black Sea and
+visited Balaclava, where the state of the hospitals in huts was
+extremely distressing, as help of all kinds was even more difficult
+to obtain there than at Scutari. Here Miss Nightingale spent some
+weeks, until she was prostrated by a severe attack of the Crimean
+fever, of which she very nearly died.
+
+But at length the Crimean war came to an end. The nation was
+prepared to welcome its heroine with the most passionate enthusiasm.
+But Florence Nightingale quietly slipped back unnoticed to her
+Derbyshire home, without its being known that she had passed through
+London.
+
+Worn out with ill-health and fatigue, and naturally shrinking from
+publicity, the public at large has scarcely ever seen her; she has
+been a great invalid ever since the war, and for many years hardly
+ever left her house.
+
+But her energy has been untiring. She was one of the founders of the
+Red Cross Society for the relief of the sick and wounded in war.
+When the civil war broke out in America she was consulted as to all
+the details of the military nursing there. "Her name is almost more
+known among us than even in Europe," wrote an American. During the
+Franco-German war she gave advice for the chief hospitals under the
+Crown Princess, the Princess Alice, and others. The Children's
+Hospital, at Lisbon, was erected from her plans. The hospitals in
+Australia, India, and other places have received her care. A large
+proportion of the plans for the building and organization of the
+hospitals erected during the last twenty-five years in England, have
+passed through her hands.
+
+The Queen, who had followed her work with constant interest,
+presented her with a beautiful and costly decoration. The nation
+gave L50,000 to found the Nightingale Home. In this home Miss
+Nightingale takes the deepest interest, constantly having the nurses
+and sisters to visit her, and learning from them the most minute
+details of its working. Great is evidently her rejoicing when one of
+her "Nightingales" proves to be a really fine nurse, such a one, for
+instance, as Agnes Jones, the reformer of workhouse nursing.
+
+This was the high position Florence Nightingale conquered for her
+fellow-women. Hundreds have occupied, and are still occupying, the
+ground she won for them. "And I give a quarter of a century's
+European experience," she goes on, "when I say that the happiest
+people, the fondest of their occupation, the most thankful for their
+lives, are, in my opinion, those engaged in sick nursing."
+
+Officials in high places, ever since the Crimean war, have sent Miss
+Nightingale piles, mountains one might say, of reports and blue
+books for her advice. She seems to be able to condense any number of
+them into half a dozen telling sentences; for instance, the
+mortality in Indian regiments, during times of peace, became
+exceedingly alarming. Reports on the subject were poured in upon
+her. "The men are simply treated like Strasbourg geese," she said in
+effect. "They eat, sleep, frizzle in the sun, and eat and sleep
+again. Treat them reasonably, and they will be well." She has
+written much valuable advice on "How to live and not die in India."
+
+Children's hospitals have also engaged much of her attention. You
+cannot open one of her books at hazard without being struck with
+some shrewd remark, that tells how far-reaching is her observation;
+as in this, on the playgrounds of children's hospitals: "A large
+garden-ground, laid out in sward and grass hillocks, and such ways
+as children like (not too pretty, or the children will be scolded
+for spoiling it), must be provided."
+
+Here, I am sorry to find, my space comes to an end, but not, I hope,
+before I have been able to sketch in some slight way what great
+results will assuredly follow, when Faith and Science are united in
+one person. In the days, which we may hope are now dawning, when
+these gifts will be united, not in an individual here and there, but
+in a large portion of our race, there will doubtless be many a
+devoted woman whose knowledge may equal her practical skill, and her
+love for God and her fellow-creatures, who will understand, even
+more thoroughly than most of us now can (most of us being still so
+ignorant), how deep a debt of gratitude is due to her who first
+opened for women so many paths of duty, and raised nursing from a
+menial employment to the dignity of an "Art of Charity"--to
+England's first great nurse, the wise, beloved, and far-seeing
+heroine of the Crimean war, the Lady of the Lamp, Florence
+Nightingale.
+
+
+
+
+DR. LOUIS PASTEUR[21]
+
+         [Footnote 21: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By Dr. CYRUS EDSON
+
+(1822-1895)
+
+[Illustration: Dr. Louis Pasteur.]
+
+
+Louis Pasteur, the Columbus of "the world of the infinitely
+little"--to quote the phrase of Professor Dumas--was born in the
+town of Dole, France, on December 27, 1822. His father was an old
+soldier, decorated on the field of battle, who, after leaving the
+array, earned his bread as a tanner. In 1825 M. Pasteur moved from
+Dole to the town of Arbois, on the borders of the Cuisance, where
+his son began his education in the communal college. The boy was
+exceedingly fond of fishing and of sketching, and it was not until
+he reached the age of fourteen that he began study in earnest. There
+being no professor of philosophy at Arbois, Louis Pasteur moved to
+Besancon, where he received the degree of _bachelier es lettres_ and
+was at once appointed as one of the tutors. Here he studied the
+course in mathematics necessary for admission into the Ecole
+Normale, in Paris, which he entered in October, 1843. Already his
+passion for chemistry had shown itself, and he took the lectures in
+that science delivered by M. Dumas at the Sorbonne, and by M. Balard
+at the Ecole Normale. It was but a short time before he became a
+marked man in his class, especially for his intense devotion to
+experiment. Thanks to M. Delafosse, one of the lecturers of the
+Ecole Normale, his attention was turned to crystallography, and a
+note from the German chemist, Mitscherlich, communicated to the
+Academy of Sciences, set him on fire with curiosity. Mitscherlich
+declared: "The paratartrate and the tartrate of soda and ammonia
+have the same chemical composition, the same crystalline form, the
+same angles, the same specific weight, the same double refraction,
+and the same inclination of the optic axes. Dissolved in water,
+their refraction is the same. But while the dissolved tartrate
+causes the plane of polarized light to rotate, the paratartrate
+exacts no such action."
+
+Pasteur at once instituted experiments resulting in the discovery of
+minute facets in the tartrate which gave it the power noted. He
+found in the paratartrate these facets existed, but that there was
+an equal admixture of right-and left-handed crystals, and the one
+neutralized the effect of the other. He also discovered the
+left-handed tartrate. These discoveries at the opening of Pasteur's
+career brought him at once to the front among the scientific men. He
+followed them with a profound investigation into the symmetry and
+dissymmetry of atoms, and reached the conclusion that in these lay
+the basic difference between inorganic and organic matter, between
+the absence of life and life.
+
+Nominated at the age of thirty-two as Dean of the Faculte des
+Sciences, at Lille, Pasteur determined to devote a portion of his
+lectures to fermentation. At that time ferments were believed to be,
+to quote Liebig, "Nitrogenous substances--albumin, fibrin, casein;
+or the liquids which embrace them--milk, blood, urine--in a state of
+alteration which they undergo in contact with air." Pasteur examined
+the lactic ferment and found little rods, 1/25000 inch in length,
+which nipped themselves in the centre, divided into two, grew to
+full length and divided again, and these living things he declared
+to be the active principles of the ferment. He made a mixture of
+yeast, chalk, sugar, and water, added some of the rods, and got
+fermentation. He then made a mixture of sugar, water, phosphate of
+potash, and magnesia, and introducing fresh cells, fermentation
+followed. Liebig's theory of the nitrogenous character of the
+ferment disappeared when fermentation was caused in a mixture having
+no nitrogenous elements.
+
+Pasteur had discovered that fermentation was a phenomenon of
+nutrition; it followed the increase and growth of the little rods.
+The next step was the discovery of the ferment of butyric acid, a
+species of vibrio consisting of little rods united in chains of two
+or three and possessed of movement. He found these vibrios lived
+without air. Further experiments showed there were ferments to which
+air was necessary, called by Pasteur the _aerobics_, and others to
+whom oxygen was fatal, the _anaerobics_. He proved, also, by an
+exhaustive series of experiments, that what is called putrefaction
+of animal matter is the result of the combined work of the _aerobics_
+and the _anaerobics_, which reduce that part not taken up by oxygen
+to dead organic matter, ready in its turn to form food for living
+things.
+
+His attention having been turned to the needs of the vinegar makers
+of Orleans, Pasteur began the examination of the ferment which
+produces vinegar from wine. He found this in the mycoderm aceto, a
+mould-like plant which has the power of developing acetic acid from
+alcohol. As the result of his investigation, the manufacturers of
+vinegar in France were able to do away with the cumbrous process
+they had long followed, and to make vinegar, not only more cheaply,
+but of very much better quality. But during these experiments
+Pasteur found the temperature of 65 deg. C. was sufficient to kill the
+mycoderm. When, then, the wine makers of France appealed to him to
+investigate the "diseases" of wine, he was ready for the work.
+
+Before this, however, he had examined the claims of Pouchet and
+others to their alleged discovery of spontaneous generation; in
+other words, the production of life. Ranging himself against them,
+Pasteur showed their experiments not to have been conclusive, simply
+because they had not succeeded in excluding the dust which contained
+germs of life in the shape of spores of microscopic plants.
+
+The "diseases" of wine produce sour wine, wine that "spirits,"
+"greasy" wine, and bitter wine. Pasteur found each to be due to a
+different microscopic ferment, all of which could be killed by heat.
+He placed bottles of wine in a bath heated to 60 deg. C., and invited
+the most experienced wine tasters of Paris to try them afterward.
+The result of the test was the unanimous verdict that the wines had
+not been injured in the least, and to-day these "diseases" of wine
+are a thing of the past.
+
+There are departments in France where the culture of the silk-worm
+is the principal industry of the inhabitants. In 1849 a strange
+disease, called pebrine, broke out among the worms; they were unable
+to moult and died before the cocoons were spun. It spread in the
+most alarming manner until, from a crop with an average of one
+hundred and thirty million francs a year, the production of silk
+went to less than fifty millions. The silk cultivators sent for
+eggs--seed is the technical name--to Italy and Greece, and for one
+season all went well. The next, the plague was as bad as ever. More
+than that, it spread to Italy, Spain, Greece, and Turkey, until
+Japan was the only silk-producing country where the worm was
+healthy. Societies and governments, as well as individuals, were
+aghast, for the silk industry of the world was on the verge of
+annihilation, and every remedy the mind of man could conceive was
+tried, only to be rejected. In France alone the loss in 1865 was
+over one hundred million francs.
+
+At the suggestion of Professor Dumas, the Government induced Pasteur
+to examine into the "disease." He had seen in a report on the
+epidemic made by M. de Quatrefages, that there were found in the
+diseased worms certain minute corpuscles only to be seen under the
+microscope. When in June, 1865, Pasteur arrived in the town of
+Alais, he found these corpuscles without difficulty. He traced them
+from the worm to the chrysalid, in the cocoon, and thence to the
+moth; he found worms hatched from the eggs laid by these moths
+invariably developed the corpuscles. He crushed a corpuscular moth
+in water, painted a mulberry leaf with it, fed it to a healthy worm,
+and the corpuscles developed. He hatched eggs from moths free from
+corpuscles and secured healthy worms. While working on the
+"disease," Pasteur discovered in 1867 that the mortality among the
+worms was in part due to another disease, the _flacherie_, and this
+he found was the result of imperfect digestion.
+
+[Illustration: Pasteur in his Laboratory.]
+
+_Flacherie_ was contagious, and was caused by the fermentation of the
+food eaten in the body of the worm. The causes of this fermentation,
+the condition of the leaves, the temperature, and others were pointed
+out. As the result of five years' work, Pasteur had restored the silk
+industry to its former position, and had shown that the microscopic
+examination of the moth laying the eggs to be hatched was a perfect
+safeguard against _pebrine_ and _flacherie_.
+
+At the request of the emperor, Pasteur went to the Villa Vicentia,
+in Austria, belonging to the prince imperial. For ten years the silk
+harvest there had not paid the cost of the eggs.
+
+Although he was just recovering from an attack of paralysis brought
+on by overwork, Pasteur travelled to Austria, introduced his methods
+and the sale of the cocoons gave the villa a net profit of
+26,000,000 francs. No wonder it was said of him that his discoveries
+alone exceeded in money value to the French people the war indemnity
+paid by them to the Germans.
+
+Splenic fever, called _charbon_ in France, had for years decimated
+the flocks in France, Italy, Russia, Egypt, Hungary, and Brazil. It
+attacked the horse and cow as well as the sheep, and human beings
+died of it when they developed malignant pustule. Many scientific
+men had studied it, but Dr. Davaine, in 1850, was the first to find
+in the blood of a sheep that had died of the disease, "little
+thread-like bodies about twice the length of a blood-corpuscle.
+These little bodies exhibit no spontaneous motion."
+
+Pasteur began the examination of splenic fever by securing some of
+the blood from an animal dying from it. In the work before him he
+associated with himself M. Joubert, one of his former pupils. A drop
+of the blood sown in the water of yeast--the medium used for
+cultures by Pasteur at that time--produced myriads of the rods, the
+bacilli or microbes. A drop of this taken at the end of twenty-four
+hours, and placed in a fresh flask of the medium, again produced
+thousands of the bacilli. Pasteur found that guinea-pigs inoculated
+from the first flask developed the fever, and the same result
+followed when the inoculation was from the twentieth. He had proved,
+then, that splenic fever was produced by the bacilli, by living
+organisms only to be seen with a powerful microscope.
+
+While working on the bacilli of splenic fever, Pasteur had isolated
+the bacillus of chicken cholera, had cultivated it and had
+inoculated chickens with it, developing the disease. He found that
+so long as the cultures were made from flask to flask within
+twenty-four hours, the virus of the disease, that is, the power of
+the bacilli to produce cholera in the fowls inoculated, remained the
+same and the fowl died. But he discovered that if a flask containing
+the bacilli were left exposed to the air for two weeks, and the
+fowls were then inoculated with bacilli from this flask, they became
+sick, but did not die. Following this up, he inoculated a hen that
+had recovered from a sickness so produced, with the bacilli in their
+strongest and most virulent form, and the hen showed no effect
+whatever. Then he took two hens, one fresh from the coop and the
+other well again after the sickness produced by the inoculation with
+the exposed bacilli, and inoculated both with the blood of a hen
+that was dying of chicken cholera. The first died, the second was
+affected. In other words, Pasteur had made the greatest discovery in
+physiology of this century. He had found it is possible to attenuate
+the virus of a virulent disease, and to use that virus so attenuated
+as a vaccine matter which will guard the animal vaccinated against
+the disease. He had taken Jenner's discovery, and proved it applied
+to other diseases besides small-pox.
+
+Pasteur's theory of the reason why any vaccine matter will have its
+prophylactic effect, is this: He believes there is in the blood of
+any animal subject to a disease caused by bacilli some substance
+which is necessary to the sustenance of those bacilli; and when the
+bacilli, having an attenuated virus, are introduced, they slowly
+consume all of this substance.
+
+The substance being one which nature creates very slowly, no
+subsequent introduction of the bacilli, however virulent, can
+produce the disease until such time shall have elapsed that a new
+supply of the substance shall have been secreted. In this way he
+accounts for the fact that vaccination will protect from small-pox
+for a more or less defined period of time.
+
+Pasteur hastened to apply his discovery of the attenuation of the
+virus of chicken cholera to the virus of splenic fever. Here,
+however, he was met with a serious difficulty. The microbes of
+splenic fever, if left in the flask for forty-eight hours, developed
+bright spots, and gradually into these spots the bacilli themselves
+seemed to be absorbed. Pasteur found these spots were the spores or
+seeds of the microbes, and he also found that, while the bacilli
+could be killed easily in various ways, the spores possessed a much
+greater resistance. They could be dried, for example, and preserved
+in that state indefinitely. It was apparent that the oxygenation
+which attenuated the venom of the bacilli of chicken cholera was
+impossible with those of splenic fever if the bacilli of the latter
+disappeared within a week, leaving the spores behind. But Pasteur
+had discovered before this that, unless the temperature of a fowl
+were lowered artificially, inoculation with the microbes of splenic
+fever would not produce the disease. From this he argued that, as
+the heat of the fowl's body was sufficient to resist the contagion,
+the bacilli themselves must be extremely sensitive to variations in
+temperature. He tried the experiment and found, by lowering the
+temperature of the flasks containing the cultures, he could prevent
+the formation of the spores. He then attenuated the venom of the
+splenic bacilli as he had that of the fowl cholera, tried it on
+guinea-pigs, found they became sick and recovered; inoculated them
+with the bacilli of full strength, but with no result. Pursuing his
+experiments, he discovered that he could by using vaccine-attenuated
+bacilli, of unequal strength, cause any degree of sickness he
+pleased.
+
+In the early part of 1881 Pasteur agreed to hold a public exhibition
+of his vaccine for splenic fever, the animals to be supplied by the
+Society of Agriculture in Melun. The experiment was begun on May
+5th. Pasteur inoculated twenty-four sheep, one goat, and six cows
+with six drops each of attenuated virus, and twelve days afterward
+he reinoculated them with a stronger virus. On May 31st he
+reinoculated the thirty-one animals with the strongest virus of
+splenic fever, and at the same time inoculated twenty-five sheep and
+four cows which had not been vaccinated as were the others. On June
+2d over two hundred people assembled at the farm to see the result.
+The twenty-five sheep that had not been vaccinated all died before
+that evening. The non-vaccinated cows had intense fever and great
+swellings, and could scarcely stand up. On the other hand, the
+vaccinated sheep and cows were in full health and were feeding
+quietly. Pasteur had conquered splenic fever.
+
+Having attenuated the virus of these bacilli, Pasteur began a series
+of experiments to determine whether the attenuated virus could be
+intensified until its former venom was obtained. This he succeeded
+in, and thus discovered what is probably the key to the solution of
+the problem of the periodicity of epidemics of contagious diseases,
+such as cholera. In 1882 Pasteur's attention was called to a new
+disease, swine fever (_rouget_), which was ravaging the herds of
+swine in France. He found the microbes, attenuated them, vaccinated
+the pigs, and secured the most favorable results. He also discovered
+that by passing the microbe of a disease through an animal not
+subject to that disease, he attenuated it so far as its effects on
+another were concerned.
+
+It was in 1880 that Pasteur first began his experiments in
+hydrophobia. Securing the saliva of a child suffering from the
+disease, he inoculated rabbits with it and they died in thirty-six
+hours. He examined the saliva and the blood of the rabbits, and
+found in both a new microbe (a minute disk having two points). He
+established by repeated experiments that hydrophobia is a disease of
+the nerves, that a portion of the medulla oblongata, or of the
+spinal cord, is very much more certain to produce the disease, when
+introduced into the blood or placed on the brain, than is the
+saliva. He succeeded at last in isolating the microbe, in making
+cultures of it, and then attenuating it, and in May, 1884, he
+produced before a commission appointed by the Minister of Public
+Instruction the following results:
+
+Of six dogs unprotected by vaccination, three died as the results of
+bites of a dog violently mad. Of eight unvaccinated dogs, six died
+after extra-venous inoculation of rabic matter. Of five unvaccinated
+dogs, all died after inoculation, by trepanning, of the brain with
+rabic matter. Of twenty-three vaccinated dogs, not one was attacked
+with the disease after inoculation, in any fashion, with the most
+virulent rabic matter procurable.
+
+During his long and busy life Louis Pasteur has been honored after
+every fashion known to men. He has opened the gates of knowledge
+wider than they were ever opened before, and in his discovery of the
+germs of disease, and in his still more wonderful discovery of the
+possibility of attenuating those germs and converting them into
+vaccines, he has revolutionized all ideas of physiology. He is one
+of the greatest pioneers in science that has ever lived, and his
+work will make his name illustrious so long as men shall continue on
+this earth. The lesson of his life is the supreme value of
+experiment; for, as was once said of him by Professor Dumas,
+"Pasteur is never mistaken, because he never asserts anything he
+cannot show another man how to prove."
+
+[Signature: Cyrus Edson.]
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL CHARLES GEORGE GORDON
+
+By Colonel R. H. VEITCH, R.E.
+
+1833-1885
+
+[Illustration: General Charles George Gordon.]
+
+
+Charles George Gordon, known as Chinese Gordon, major-general, C.B.,
+royal engineers, fourth son of Lieutenant-general Henry William
+Gordon, royal artillery, and Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Enderby,
+of Croom's Hill, Blackheath, was born at Woolwich on January 28,
+1833. He was sent to school at Taunton in 1843, and entered the
+Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1848. He obtained a commission
+in the royal engineers on June 23, 1852, and, after the usual course
+of study at Chatham was quartered for a short time at Pembroke Dock.
+In December, 1854, he received his orders for the Crimea, and
+reached Balaklava on January 1, 1855. As a young engineer subaltern
+serving in the trenches, his daring was conspicuous, while his
+special aptitude for obtaining a personal knowledge of the movements
+of the enemy was a matter of common observation among his brother
+officers. He was wounded on June 6, 1855, and was present at the
+attack on the Redan on June 18th. On the surrender of Sebastopol
+Gordon accompanied the expedition to Kinburn, and on his return was
+employed on the demolition of the Sebastopol docks. For his services
+in the Crimea Gordon received the British war medal and clasp, the
+Turkish war medal, and the French Legion of Honor.
+
+In May, 1856, in company with lieutenant (now major-general) E. R.
+James, R.E., he joined Colonel (now General Sir) E. Stanton, R.E.,
+in Bessarabia, as assistant commissioner for the delimitation of the
+new frontier line. This duty was completed in April, 1857, and he
+was then sent with Lieutenant James in a similar capacity to
+Erzeroum, where Colonel (now General Sir) Lintorn Simmons was the
+English commissioner for the Asiatic frontier boundary. The work was
+accomplished by the following October, when Gordon returned to
+England. In the spring of 1858 he and Lieutenant James were sent as
+commissioners to the Armenian frontier to superintend the erection
+of the boundary posts of the line they had previously surveyed. This
+was finished in November, and Gordon returned home, having acquired
+an intimate knowledge of the people of the districts visited.
+
+On April 1, 1859, Gordon was promoted captain, and about the same
+time appointed second adjutant of the corps at Chatham, a post he
+held for little more than a year, for, in the summer of 1860, he
+joined the forces of Sir James Hope Grant, operating with the French
+against China. He overtook the allied army at Tientsin, and was
+present in October at the capture of Pekin and the pillage and
+destruction of the emperor's summer palace. For his services in this
+campaign he received the British war medal with clasp for Pekin and
+a brevet majority in December, 1862. Gordon commanded the royal
+engineers at Tientsin, when the British forces remained there under
+Sir Charles Staveley, and while thus employed made several
+expeditions into the interior, in one of which he explored a
+considerable section of the great wall of China. In April, 1862, he
+was summoned to Shanghai to assist in the operations consequent upon
+the determination of Sir Charles Staveley to keep a radius of thirty
+miles round the city clear of the rebel Taipings. Gordon took part
+as commanding royal engineer, in the storming of Sing-poo and
+several other fortified towns and in clearing the rebels out of
+Kah-ding. He was afterward employed in surveying the country round
+Shanghai.
+
+The Taiping rebellion was of so barbarous a nature that its suppression
+had become necessary in the interest of civilization. A force raised at
+the expense of the Shanghai merchants, and supported by the Chinese
+Government, had been for some years struggling against its prowess. This
+force, known as the "Ever Victorious Army," was defeated at Taitsan,
+February 22, 1863. Li Hung Chang, governor-general of the Kiang
+provinces, then applied to the British commander-in-chief for the
+services of an English officer, and Gordon was authorized to accept the
+command. He arrived at Sung Kiong and entered on his new duties as a
+mandarin and lieutenant-colonel in the Chinese service on March 24,
+1863. His force was composed of some three to four thousand Chinese,
+officered by 150 Europeans of almost every nationality and often of
+doubtful character. By the indomitable will of its commander this
+heterogeneous body was moulded into a little army, whose high-sounding
+title of "Ever Victorious" became a reality, and in less than two years,
+after thirty-three engagements, the power of the Taipings was completely
+broken and the rebellion stamped out. The maintenance of discipline was
+a perpetual struggle, and at one time there was a mutiny which was only
+quelled by shooting the ringleader on the spot. Before the summer of
+1863 was over, Gordon captured Kahpoo, Wokong, and Patachiaow, on the
+south of Soo-chow, the great rebel stronghold, and, sweeping round to
+the north, secured Leeku, Wanti, and Fusaiqwan, so that by October
+Soo-chow was completely invested. On November 29th the outworks were
+captured by assault and the city surrendered on December 6th. Gordon was
+always in front in all these storming parties, carrying no other weapon
+than a little cane. His men called it his "magic wand," regarding it as
+a charm that protected his life and led them on to victory.
+
+When Soo-chow fell, Gordon had stipulated with the governor-general,
+Li, for the lives of the Wangs (rebel leaders). They were
+treacherously murdered by Li's orders. Indignant at this perfidy,
+Gordon refused to serve any longer with Governor Li, and when on
+January 1, 1864, money and rewards were heaped upon him by the
+emperor, declined them all, saying that he received the approbation
+of the emperor with every gratification, but regretted most
+sincerely that, "owing to the circumstances which occurred since the
+capture of Soo-chow, he was unable to receive any mark of his
+majesty the emperor's recognition."
+
+After some months of inaction it became evident that if Gordon did
+not again take the field the Taipings would regain the rescued
+country. On the urgent representations of the British envoy at
+Pekin, Governor Li was compelled to issue a proclamation exonerating
+Gordon from all complicity in the murder of the Wangs. Gordon then
+reluctantly consented to continue his services, on the distinct
+understanding that in any future capitulation he should not be
+interfered with. In December, 1863, a fresh campaign was commenced,
+and during the following months no fewer than seven towns were
+captured or surrendered. In February, 1864, Yesing and Liyang were
+taken, but at Kintang Gordon met with a reverse and was himself
+wounded for the first time. He nevertheless continued to give his
+orders until he had to be carried to his boat. After some other
+mishaps he carried Chan-chu-fu by assault on April 27th. The
+garrison consisted of 20,000 men, of whom 1,500 were killed. This
+victory not only ended the campaign but completely destroyed the
+rebellion, and the Chinese regular forces were enabled to occupy
+Nankin in the July following. The large money present offered to
+Gordon by the emperor was again declined, although he had spent his
+pay promoting the efficiency of his force, so that he wrote home, "I
+shall leave China as poor as when I entered it." The emperor,
+however, bestowed upon him the yellow jacket, and peacock's feather
+of a mandarin of the first class, with the title of Ti-Tu, the
+highest military rank in China, and a gold medal of distinction of
+the first class. The merchants of Shanghai presented him with an
+address expressing their admiration of his conduct of the war.
+
+On his return home, in the beginning of 1865, he was made a C.B.,
+having previously received his brevet as lieutenant-colonel in
+February, 1864. In September, 1865, he was appointed commanding
+royal engineer at Gravesend, and for the next six years carried out
+the ordinary duties of the corps, superintending the construction of
+the forts for the defence of the Thames. During this quiet and
+uneventful period of routine work he devoted his spare time to the
+poor and sick of the neighborhood, stinting himself that he might
+have larger means wherewith to relieve others. He took special
+interest in the infirmary and the ragged schools. He took many of
+the boys from the schools into his own house, starting them in life
+by sending them to sea, and he continued to watch the future
+progress of his kings, as he called them, with never-failing
+sympathy.
+
+In October, 1871, Gordon was appointed British member of the
+international commission at Galatz for the improvement of the
+navigation of the Sulina mouth of the Danube, in accordance with
+the Treaty of Paris. During his tenure of this office he accompanied
+General Sir John Adye to the Crimea to report on the British
+cemeteries there. On his way back to Galatz, in November, 1872, he
+met Nubar Pasha at Constantinople, who sounded him as to his
+succeeding Sir Samuel Baker in the Soudan. The following year Gordon
+visited Cairo on his way home, and on the resignation of Sir Samuel
+Baker was appointed governor of the equatorial provinces of Central
+Africa, with a salary of L10,000 a year. He declined to receive more
+than L2,000.
+
+Gordon went to Egypt in the beginning of 1874, and left Cairo in
+February for Gondokoro, the seat of his government, travelling by
+the Suez-Swakin-Berber route. He reached Khartoum on March 13th,
+stopped only a few days to issue a proclamation and make
+arrangements for men and supplies, then, continuing his journey,
+arrived at Gondokoro on April 16th. The garrison of Gondokoro at
+this time did not dare to move out of the place except in armed
+bands; but in the course of a year the confidence of the natives had
+been gained, the country made safe, eight stations formed and
+garrisoned, the government monopoly of ivory enforced, and
+sufficient money sent to Cairo to pay all the expenses of the
+expedition. At the close of the year, having already lost by
+sickness eight members of his small European staff, Gordon
+transferred the seat of government from the unhealthy station,
+Gondokoro, to Laido. By the end of 1875 Gondokoro and Duffh had been
+joined by a chain of fortified posts, a day's journey apart, the
+slave-dealers had been dispersed, and a letter post organized to
+travel regularly between Cairo and the verge of the Albert Nyanza,
+over two thousand miles as the crow flies.
+
+Gordon had also visited Magungo, Murchison Falls, and Chibero, with
+a view to a further line of fortified posts, and he established for
+the first time, by personal observation, the course of the Victoria
+Nile into Lake Albert. Although he had accomplished a great work
+since his arrival, his efforts to put down the slave trade were
+thwarted by Ismail Pasha Yacoub, governor-general of the Soudan, and
+were likely to prove abortive so long as the Soudan remained a
+distinct government from that of the equatorial provinces. He,
+therefore, at the end of 1876, resigned his appointment and returned
+to England. Strong pressure was put upon him by the khedive to
+return, and on January 31, 1877, he left for Cairo, where he
+received the combined appointment of governor-general of the Soudan,
+Darfour, the equatorial provinces, and the Red Sea littoral, on the
+understanding that his efforts were to be directed to the
+improvement of the means of communication and the absolute
+suppression of the slave trade. Gordon first visited Abyssinia,
+where Walad el Michael was giving a great deal of trouble on the
+Egyptian frontier. He settled the difficulty for a time and
+travelled across country to Khartoum, where he was installed as
+governor-general, May 5th. After a short stay there he hastened to
+Darfour, which was in revolt; with a small force and rapid movements
+he quelled the rising, and, by the humane consideration he showed
+for the suffering people, won their confidence and pacified the
+province. Before this work was completely accomplished his attention
+was called away by the slave-dealers, who, headed by Suleiman, son
+of the notorious Zebehr, with 6,000 armed men, had moved on Dara
+from their stronghold, Shaka. Gordon left Fischer on August 31,
+1877, with a small escort, which he soon outstripped, and in a day
+and a half, having covered eighty-five miles on a camel, entered
+Dara alone, to the surprise of its small garrison. The following
+morning, attended by a small escort, he rode into the rebel camp,
+upbraided Suleiman with his disloyalty, and announced his intention
+to disarm the band and break them up. Gordon's fearless bearing and
+strong will secured his object, and Suleiman returned with his men
+to Shaka.
+
+They rose again; and Gordon's Italian aide, Gessi, after a year's
+marching and fighting, succeeded in capturing Suleiman, and some of
+the chief slave-dealers with him. They were tried as rebels and
+shot. The suppression of the slave trade had thus been practically
+accomplished when on July 1st news arrived of the deposition of
+Ismail and the succession of Tewfik, which determined Gordon to
+resign his appointment. On arriving at Cairo, the khedive induced
+him first to undertake a mission to Abyssinia to prevent, if
+possible, an impending war with that country. Gordon went, saw King
+John, at Debra Tabor, but could arrive at no satisfactory
+understanding with him, and was abruptly dismissed. On his way to
+Kassala he was made prisoner to King John's men and carried to
+Garramudhiri, where he was left to find his way with his little
+party over the snowy mountains to the Red Sea. He reached Massowah
+on December 8, 1879, and on his return to Cairo, the khedive
+accepted his resignation. He arrived in England early in January,
+1880. During his service under the khedive, Gordon received both the
+second-and first-class of the order of the Medjidieh.
+
+His constitution was so much impaired by his sojournings in so
+deadly a climate that his medical advisers sent him to Switzerland
+to recruit. He returned to England, in April, 1880, and in the
+following month accompanied the Marquis of Ripon, the new Viceroy of
+India, to that country as his private secretary. He resigned almost
+immediately, and was invited to China to advise the Chinese
+Government in connection with their then strained relations with
+Russia. Gordon accepted at once, and although difficulties were
+raised by the home authorities, he reached Hongkong on July 2d, and
+went on by Shanghai and Chefoo to Tientsin to meet his old friend,
+Li Hung Chang, who, with Prince Kung, headed the peace party. From
+Tientsin, Gordon went to Pekin, and his wise and disinterested
+counsels in favor of peace at length carried the day.
+
+In 1881 he went to Mauritius as commanding royal engineer, and while
+there was promoted major-general. In 1882, he was at the Cape
+Colony, endeavoring to arrange a peace with the natives of
+Basutoland; but he failed, largely through the treachery of the Cape
+officials.
+
+[Illustration: Gordon attacked by El Mahdi's Arabs.]
+
+The success of the Mahdi in the Soudan and the catastrophe to Hicks
+Pasha, in November, 1883, had induced the British Government, not
+only to decline any military assistance to enable the Egyptian
+Government to hold the Soudan, but to insist upon its abandonment by
+the khedive. To do this it was necessary to bring away the garrisons
+scattered all over the country, and such of the Egyptian
+population as might object to remain. To Gordon was intrusted the
+withdrawal of the garrisons and the evacuation of the Soudan. At
+Cairo his functions were considerably extended. He was appointed,
+with the consent of the British Government, governor-general of the
+Soudan, and was instructed, not only to effect the evacuation of the
+country, but to take steps to leave behind an organized independent
+government.
+
+By the month of March, having succeeded in sending some two thousand
+five hundred people down the Nile into safety, Gordon found himself
+getting hemmed in by the Mahdi and no assistance coming from
+without. On April 16, 1884, his last telegram before the wires were
+cut complained bitterly of the neglect of the Government. The attack
+of Khartoum began on March 12th, and from that time to its fall
+Gordon carried on the defence with consummate skill. His resources
+were small, his troops few, and his European assistants could be
+counted on the fingers of one hand; yet he managed to convert his
+river steamers into iron-clads, to build new ones, to make and lay
+down land mines, to place wire entanglements, and to execute
+frequent sorties, while he kept up the spirits and courage of his
+followers by striking medals in honor of their bravery, and baffled
+a fanatic and determined foe for over ten months, during the latter
+part of which the people who trusted him were perishing from disease
+and famine, and the grip of the enemy was tightening.
+
+In April the necessity of a relief expedition was pressed upon the
+Government at home, but without avail. In May popular feeling found
+vent, not only in public meetings but in the House of Commons, when
+a vote of censure on the Government was lost by only twenty-eight
+votes. Eventually, proposals were made to send a relief expedition
+from Cairo in the autumn, and on August 5th a vote of credit for
+L300,000 was taken for "operations for the relief of General Gordon,
+should it become necessary, and to make certain preparations in
+respect thereof." Even when it was decided that Lord Wolseley should
+take command of a relief expedition up the Nile, hesitation
+continued to mark the proceedings of the Government, and time, so
+valuable on account of the rising of the Nile, was lost. It was
+September 1st before Lord Wolseley was able to leave England. Then
+everything was done, but the delay had been fatal.
+
+In September, 1884, having driven the rebels out of Berber, Gordon
+authorized his companions, Colonel Stewart and Frank Power (_Times_
+correspondent), to go down the river in the steamer Abbas to open
+communication with Dongola. The steamer struck on a rock, and they
+were both treacherously murdered. Gordon was now the only Englishman
+in Khartoum. On December 20th, Lord Wolseley launched Sir Herbert
+Stewart's expedition from Korti across the desert to Metemmeh,
+where, after two severe engagements, it arrived on January 20, 1885,
+under command of Sir Charles Wilson, Stewart having been mortally
+wounded. In order to succor the advancing force, Gordon had deprived
+himself for three months of five out of his seven steamers. These
+five steamers, fully armed, equipped, and provisioned, were in
+waiting, and in them were his diaries and letters up to December
+14th. On that date he wrote to Major Watson, R.E., at Cairo, that
+he thought the game was up, and a catastrophe might be expected in
+ten days' time, and sent his adieux to all. On the same day he wrote
+to his sister: "I am quite happy, thank God, and like Lawrence, I
+have tried to do my duty." His diary ended on the same day with: "I
+have done the best for the honor of my country. Good-by." It was
+necessary for the safety of his troops that Wilson should first make
+a reconnoissance down the river toward Berber before going to
+Khartoum, and when he started up the river, on January 24th, the
+difficulties of navigation were so great that it was midday on the
+28th before the goal was reached, and then only to find it in the
+hands of the Mahdi, Khartoum having fallen early on the 26th, after
+a siege of 317 days.
+
+From the most accurate information since obtained, it appears that
+the garrison, early in January, had been reduced to great straits
+for want of food, and great numbers of the inhabitants had availed
+themselves of Gordon's permission to join the Mahdi. Omdurman,
+opposite to Khartoum, on the west bank of the river, fell about
+January 13th, and about the 18th a sortie was made, in which some
+serious fighting took place. The state of the garrison then grew
+desperate. Gordon continually visited the posts by night as well as
+day, and encouraged the famished garrison. The news of Sir Herbert
+Stewart's expedition, and the successful engagements it had fought
+on the way to Metemmeh, determined the Mahdi to storm Khartoum
+before reinforcements could arrive for its relief. The attack was
+made on the south front at 3.30 a.m., on Monday, January 26, 1885.
+The defence was half-hearted, treachery was at work, and Gordon
+received no tidings of the assault. The rebels made good their
+entrance, and then a general massacre ensued. The accounts of
+Gordon's death are confused and conflicting, but they all agree in
+stating that he was killed near the gate of the palace, and his head
+carried to the Mahdi's camp.
+
+Intelligence of the catastrophe reached England on Thursday,
+February 5th. The outburst of popular grief, not only in this
+country and her colonies, but also among foreign nations, has hardly
+been paralleled. It was universally acknowledged that the world had
+lost a hero. Friday, March 13th, was then observed as a day of
+national mourning, and special services were held in the cathedrals
+and in many churches of the land, those at Westminster Abbey and St.
+Paul's being attended by the royal family, members of both houses of
+parliament, and representatives of the naval and military services.
+Parliament voted a national monument to be placed in Trafalgar
+Square, and a sum of L20,000 to his relatives. More general
+expression was given to the people's admiration of Gordon's
+character by the institution of the "Gordon Boys' Home" for homeless
+and destitute boys. Gordon's sister presented to the town of
+Southampton her brother's library, in March, 1889.
+
+Gordon's character was unique. Simple-minded, modest, and almost
+morbidly retiring, he was fearless and outspoken when occasion
+required. Strong in will and prompt in action, with a naturally hot
+temper, he was yet forgiving to a fault. Somewhat brusque in manner,
+his disposition was singularly sympathetic and attractive, winning
+all hearts. Weakness and suffering at once enlisted his interest.
+Caring nothing for what was said of him, he was indifferent to
+praise or reward, and had a supreme contempt for money. His whole
+being was dominated by a Christian faith, at once so real and so
+earnest that, although his religious views were tinged with
+mysticism, the object of his life was the entire surrender of
+himself to work out whatever he believed to be the will of God.
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER[22]
+
+         [Footnote 22: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS
+
+(1839-1876)
+
+[Illustration: General George A. Custer.]
+
+
+Daring is always popular. The dashing fighter outranks the tactician
+and takes precedence over the engineer when the people's plaudits
+for valor fill the air. To be the _beau sabreur_ of the army, as was
+Murat, in Napoleon's day, and as Custer was in Grant's, is as
+glorious as it is dramatic, as inspiring as it is picturesque. There
+were, in fact, many points of resemblance between these two dashing
+cavalry leaders--Murat, the Frenchman, and Custer, the American.
+Both smelled powder as the aides-de-camp of their chiefs; both rose
+rapidly from grade to grade, and from rank to rank, until they stood
+at the top; both labored at the end under the burden of criticism
+and detraction; and both met their death through a mistake, and fell
+like brave and gallant soldiers.
+
+George Armstrong Custer was born at New Rumley, in the State of
+Ohio, on December 5, 1839. His father was a blacksmith and farmer,
+of German stock, a descendant of a Hessian officer named Kuestu--one
+among many who came to conquer and remained to live and die as
+citizens of the land they had failed to subjugate.
+
+Young Custer was educated in the district school of New Rumley, and
+in the academy at Monroe, in Michigan, where he went in 1849 to live
+with his sister Lydia. Returning to Ohio he taught school for a year
+or more in Hopedale, near New Rumley, and in 1857 was able to see
+his boyish dream come true, and, as a lad of seventeen, enter the
+United States Military Academy at West Point.
+
+Cadet Custer graduated from West Point in 1861, and hurried to the
+front at once, eager for service, for the war between the States had
+begun. He was made bearer of despatches by General Scott; he fought
+at Bull Run as lieutenant in the Second United States Cavalry, to
+which he had been assigned; he conducted successfully balloon
+reconnoissance along the Confederate lines, and so inspired General
+McClellan by his energy, courage, and persistence that he was
+appointed aide-de-camp to the general, with the rank of captain.
+
+For his dash and daring in the Rappahannock battles he was advanced
+by speedy promotions to the rank of brigadier-general of volunteers,
+his commission dating from June, 1863, just one year after his
+appointment as aide-de-camp to McClellan. He won his brevet as major
+in the regular army for his brilliant leadership of cavalry at
+Gettysburg; he had a horse shot under him while heading the charge
+at Culpepper, and gained his brevet as lieutenant-colonel of
+regulars for his gallantry in Sheridan's lights about Richmond, in
+the spring of 1864. He won renown and glory in Sheridan's famous
+raid on Richmond, by saving his brigade-colors at the battle of
+Trevillion Station, and, in September, 1864, his dashing valor at
+Winchester procured him his brevet as colonel of regulars and the
+volunteer rank of major-general. He won the battle of Woodstock by a
+wonderful cavalry engagement, routing the enemy, whom he drove for
+twenty-six miles, and capturing all their guns save one. In the
+bloody battle of Cedar Creek he fought at the head of the Third
+Division of Cavalry from start to finish, helping to turn a rout
+into a victory and recapturing all the guns and colors the Union
+troops had lost early in the action, besides taking all the
+Confederate flags and cannon. At Waynesboro, in the spring of 1865,
+still leading the Third Division, he won the day unaided; he
+captured 1,600 prisoners, with all the enemy's camp equipage, guns,
+and colors, and then turning for another onset, Custer drove the
+Confederate General Early from the field, destroying his command,
+scattering his army, and ending the campaign, so far as Early's army
+was concerned. For this brilliant engagement, and for his bravery at
+the battles of Five Forks and Dinwiddie Court-House, on April 1,
+1865, Custer was brevetted brigadier-general in the regular army;
+and, as he had won the first colors taken by the Army of the Potomac
+in 1862, so, in 1865, he received the first flag of truce from Lee's
+army when the end at last came, and was present at the historic
+surrender at Appomattox. Then he secured his last promotion. He was
+brevetted major-general in the regular army and appointed
+major-general of volunteers.
+
+It was a brilliant and exceptional record. He had fought in all the
+battles of the Army of the Potomac save one. He was Sheridan's most
+trusted and favorite cavalry officer. In less than four years he had
+advanced from captain of volunteers to major-general, and from
+lieutenant to major-general in the regular army. He was but
+twenty-six when the war closed, and all his promotions had been won
+by his bravery, his dash, his daring, and his good leadership.
+During the last six months of the war the Third Division of Cavalry,
+led by Custer, captured in open fight over one hundred pieces of
+artillery, sixty-five battle flags, and ten thousand prisoners. It
+was a record of which any soldier might be proud, and it made Custer
+at once the idol of his hard-riding troopers, and one of the popular
+heroes of the day. At the great review in Washington he rode near
+the head of the parade, leading what was popularly called "the most
+gallant cavalry division of the age," greeted with cheers and
+flowers along the line of march.
+
+Custer's active service did not close with the war. He was sent to
+Texas as commander of a cavalry division, and in November, 1865, was
+made chief of cavalry. In February, 1866, he was mustered out of
+service as major-general of volunteers and became again captain in
+the regular army, "on leave." President Johnson denied him the leave
+of absence he asked for to fight under Juarez in Mexico against
+Maximilian, the usurper, and in July, 1866, he received his
+commission as lieutenant-colonel of the newly formed Seventh
+Cavalry, United States Army--the regiment that he made into Indian
+fighters and served with until the end. In November, 1866, he joined
+his regiment at Fort Riley, and was soon fighting Indians on the
+plains. He utterly defeated the hostile Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and
+Kiowas at the battle of the Washita, in the Indian Territory, in
+November, 1871; he was on post duty in Kentucky until 1873, and then
+again on the plains, where, on August 4, 1873, he whipped the
+hostile Sioux at the battle of Tongue River, in the Yellowstone
+country, and again, on the 11th of the same month, at the battle of
+the Big Horn. In the summer of 1874 he led an expedition of
+exploration and discovery into the Black Hills, in the Dakota
+country, and in May, 1876, led his regiment in what proved to be his
+last campaign, a march against the hostile Sioux in the unexplored
+region of the Little Big Horn. Here, with less than three hundred
+men, he faced the confederated Sioux, numbering thousands of
+warriors, and in a desperate and characteristic engagement closed
+the record of a life of brilliant effort and daring by standing at
+bay, against the tremendous odds of ten to one, until he and his
+entire command fell to a man, fighting desperately to the end.
+
+Custer was gallant, but sometimes indiscreet; he was daring, but
+often careless of consequences; and when in positions of command he
+was apt to be impatient of cowardice and of greed. So he raised up
+enemies for himself, and twice these enemies sought and nearly
+accomplished his downfall. His last campaign was fought under the
+burden of an apparent official censure, galling to a man of Custer's
+impetuous nature, all the more so as he knew it to be unmerited and
+unjust. There is little doubt that this weight of wrong engendered a
+spirit of recklessness, foreign even to his daring nature, and led
+him to take risks he would not otherwise have accepted, simply
+because he felt the necessity for action and believed that through
+valor would come his speediest vindication. Had he been supported by
+those he relied upon he might, even in the face of the overpowering
+odds marshalled against him, have come off victorious, instead of
+dying, an unnecessary sacrifice, like another Roland, and, if we
+accept the legends, at just Roland's age. It is because that tragic
+ending of a valiant life was, viewed from the picturesque
+stand-point, its logical and dramatic conclusion, that American
+tradition and popular applause will, in the years to come, remember
+Custer, not so much for the dash at Winchester, the daring at
+Waynesboro, or the valor at Five Forks, as for his immortal last
+stand on the banks of the Little Big Horn, when he and his brave
+troopers went down in death together.
+
+General Custer was the born soldier in face and figure. Lithe,
+broad-shouldered, and sinewy in frame, nearly six feet in height,
+blue-eyed and golden-haired, he was the beau ideal cavalry
+leader--alert, active, ready, and responsive, with an eye to all
+details, a love for the picturesque in bearing and equipment, of
+great endurance, abstemious, healthy, and strong, and as much at
+home in the saddle and with the sabre as in his own little house in
+Monroe or by his blazing camp-fire. He married, in February, 1864,
+Elizabeth Bacon, a daughter of Judge Daniel S. Bacon, of Monroe. For
+ten years his wife was his constant companion in camp and in
+frontier service, and she has written many sketches of his active
+life in the saddle and his characteristics as soldier and as man.
+
+General Custer, at the time of his death, was engaged on a series of
+"War Memoirs," and his articles on frontier life and army experiences
+found ready acceptance and wide favor. He was, undoubtedly, America's
+best cavalry leader, and won a place as "a perfect general of horse"
+beside the world's dashing war-riders--from Hannibal's "Thunderbolt,"
+Mago the Carthaginian, to Maurice of Nassau and the "Golden Eagle,"
+Murat the Frenchman.
+
+Fourteen of the thirty-seven years he lived were spent in actual
+service in the camp or on the battle-field. He was a brigadier-general
+at twenty-three and a major-general at twenty-five. In the height of
+his popularity and his phenomenal success as a cavalry leader, he was
+a picturesque and familiar figure to friend and foe alike, as in his
+broad cavalier's hat, his gold-bedizened jacket, and high cavalry
+boots, with his long hair streaming in the wind, he would ride like a
+tornado, to the accompaniment of "Garry Owen," his favorite
+battle-air, carrying all before him--a subject worthy the pencil of a
+Vandyke, the very type of the dashing trooper of romance. But that
+there was a method in his dash and a practical element in his daring,
+even the generals he outranked and the civilians who tried to direct
+him would admit, and to be the choice of McClellan and the favorite of
+Sheridan gave the assurance of worth to his leadership and of value to
+his valor.
+
+In 1877 Custer's remains were removed to the graveyard at West Point
+from the battle-field of the Little Big Horn, where he had first
+been buried amid the fallen heroes of his own brave band. In 1879
+the Government made the battle-ground where Custer met his death a
+national cemetery, and raised a monument, upon which appeared the
+names and rank of all those who fell in that needless and fatal, but
+heroic, fight.
+
+[Signature: Elbridge S. Brooks.]
+
+[Illustration: Custer's Last Fight.]
+
+
+
+
+HENRY M. STANLEY[23]
+
+         [Footnote 23: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess]
+
+By NOAH BROOKS
+
+(Born 1841)
+
+[Illustration: Henry M. Stanley.]
+
+
+Two white men, one from America and the other from England, met in
+the heart of Equatorial Africa, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika,
+November 10, 1871. This was their first meeting. The Englishman had
+been lost to the outside world for more than two years, and the
+American had been looking for him since the early part of 1871.
+Finally, after many great difficulties and perils, the American
+found the lost explorer, surrounded by his black guards, friends,
+and companions. They had dimly heard of each other through the vague
+rumors of the natives for months past, and now meeting face to face,
+the American lifting his cap, said, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume."
+The Englishman nodded an affirmative reply, and the other said, "I
+am Henry M. Stanley."
+
+It was in this simple yet dramatic way that two of the most famous
+African travellers of modern times met in the heart of the Dark
+Continent. Quite as dramatic, perhaps, was the departure of Stanley
+in pursuit of Livingstone. Stanley was not widely known previous to
+his expedition to Africa in search of Livingstone. He had served as
+a war correspondent of one of the great New York newspapers for
+several years, and was known to his craft as a faithful, accurate,
+and courageous newspaper correspondent. He had dared many dangers,
+and had encountered and overcome obstacles that would have dismayed
+a less intrepid soul. In 1868 he served the _New York Herald_ as
+correspondent during the war in Abyssinia which raged between the
+British and King Theodore. It was here he got his first taste of
+African adventure. It was not a long war. The British shut up King
+Theodore in the fortress of Magdala, where he perished miserably by
+his own hand in the flames of his burning citadel. Thence Stanley
+went to Spain, where a great civil war had broken out, and he
+witnessed the sacking of cities, the prosecution of sieges, and
+battles large and small innumerable.
+
+This war over, in the autumn of 1869, the civilized world was
+wondering whether Dr. Livingstone, the African missionary and
+explorer, were dead or alive. Dr. Livingstone, who was of Scottish
+birth and was in the service of the London Missionary Society, had
+been long laboring in South Africa, a country of which the outer
+world then knew but very little. Along the coast here and there were
+points occupied temporarily by white traders and travellers, but the
+interior of the Dark Continent was known only through the tales of
+the slave-catchers, who brought to the coast the black people they
+had gathered like so many cattle in the interior. Dr. Livingstone
+was doing what he could to spread the light of the Christian
+religion through those benighted regions. His first departure into
+the interior of Africa was from Cape Town, in 1840, and for more
+than thirty-three years he spent his life in the arduous work to
+which he had consecrated himself. In 1858 he had returned to England
+and published a book, giving an account of his missionary labors and
+his discoveries, and, liberally provided with means, he returned to
+Africa to carry on his work. He was accompanied by his wife, who
+died in the interior of Africa in 1862. In 1863 he returned to
+England and published a second book, giving some further account of
+his explorations.
+
+Again, in 1865, he returned to Africa, and for more than a year no
+word came from him, but there ran a rumor that he had been killed by
+the savages. Early in 1869, however, letters from Dr. Livingstone,
+written a year before, were received on the coast, showing that he
+was alive and well. He had travelled many thousands of miles, being
+the first white man that had ever penetrated those dark and
+mysterious regions in the heart of Africa. But now, in the autumn of
+1869, more than twenty months had passed since any word of his had
+come out of the darkness, and the world was ready to believe that
+the faithful missionary and explorer had dared his fate too often,
+and had died in the jungles of Africa.
+
+It was at this time that Stanley, resting after a long and arduous
+campaign in Spain, received from James Gordon Bennett, who was then
+in Paris, a telegram summoning him to an interview in that city.
+Arriving at the French capital early in the morning, Stanley went
+straight to Mr. Bennett's lodgings, before that gentleman had risen
+from his bed. In answer to his knock a voice commanded him to enter.
+The two men had not met in many years. Stanley was bronzed and aged
+by sun and storm, and Bennett, surprised, abruptly asked, "Who are
+you?"
+
+"I am Stanley, and I have come to answer your message," was the
+reply.
+
+Bennett motioned Stanley to a seat, and after a moment's pause,
+asked:
+
+"Will you go to Africa and find Livingstone?"
+
+Stanley was startled. For a moment he reflected; then he replied, "I
+will;" and before he left the room his agreement with Bennett was
+practically concluded, and some of the larger details of the
+expedition were mapped out, and Stanley left the hotel clothed with
+a commission to find Livingstone, and promised all needed funds for
+expenses and for the relief of the great African explorer, should he
+be in need, as it was expected he would be found, if at all.
+
+Stanley first went to the east coast of Africa, where he arrived in
+the early part of 1871. Months were consumed at Zanzibar in making
+ready the expedition with which he was to penetrate into the
+interior. Several caravans or trains were despatched, one after the
+other, loaded with ammunition, arms, provisions, and the necessaries
+of life, and with a large supply of goods with which to purchase a
+right of way through hostile or unfriendly kingdoms and states.
+
+Bringing up the rear of these various trains, Stanley and his armed
+force left the coast of Africa, March 21, 1871. He had with him 192
+persons, negroes and Arabs, and as he launched out into the
+untravelled places of Africa, two words rang in his ears, "Find
+Livingstone." Enduring many hardships, sometimes fighting and
+sometimes coaxing the natives, Stanley pressed on his way, his
+general course being in a northwesterly direction, signs, rumors,
+and perhaps instincts, leading him to believe that Livingstone, if
+found alive, would be discovered somewhere in the region of Lake
+Tanganyika. It would be impossible to describe the vagueness and
+mysteriousness of the rumors which float to and fro in an
+untravelled and savage country, but as the intrepid adventurer
+pressed on he heard more and more credible reports of the lost white
+man. His first convincing intimation of his being near Livingstone
+was when a black met him, and, speaking to him in tolerably good
+English, told him that a white man was said to be in a village near
+by. This man was one of Dr. Livingstone's servants, and soon the
+two, one from America and the other from England, met at Ujiji, on
+the shores of the lake.
+
+Stanley remained with Livingstone until March 14th of the following
+year, busied with explorations of the fascinating region into which
+he had penetrated. He supplied Livingstone with all of the goods
+that he could spare, and on his return to Zanzibar he sent him a
+caravan with men, supplies, and such articles as he needed,
+fulfilling the orders of Mr. Bennett. Stanley never again saw
+Livingstone in life.
+
+Livingstone died of malarial fever contracted in the African
+marshes, and his faithful blacks embalmed his body and carried it to
+the coast, hundreds of miles, bringing with them every article
+belonging to the faithful missionary, even to the smallest scraps of
+paper on which were penned the last notes of his journey which he
+ever wrote. Livingstone was buried with grand ceremony in
+Westminster Abbey, and Stanley was one of those who bore him to his
+grave.
+
+Stanley's early life was a romance. He was born in Wales, near the
+little town of Denbigh, and his parents were so poor that when he
+was about three years of age he was sent to the poor-house of St.
+Asaph to be brought up and educated at the expense of the parish. At
+the age of thirteen he was his own master, and though young, he was
+ambitious, well informed, and well poised. He taught school while
+yet a lad in the village of Mold, Flintshire, North Wales. Tiring
+of this uncongenial occupation, he made his way to Liverpool when he
+was about fourteen years of age, and shipped as cabin-boy on board a
+sailing vessel bound to New Orleans. Like other British-born youths,
+America was to him the promised land, and thither he turned his
+steps in pursuit of fortune and fame. In New Orleans he fell in with
+a kindly merchant, a Mr. Stanley, who adopted him and gave him his
+name, for the youngster's real name was John Rowlands. His protector
+dying without leaving a will, the boy was once more turned adrift,
+but he managed to live and sustain himself, and when twenty-one
+years of age, in 1861, the great Civil War having broken out,
+Stanley went into the Confederate service then recruiting at New
+Orleans. He was subsequently taken prisoner by the Federal forces,
+and being allowed his liberty, he volunteered in the United States
+Navy. He did his work well, and was in due time promoted to be
+acting ensign on the iron-clad Ticonderoga. He made friends wherever
+he went, for he was brave, modest, and of a frank disposition. The
+war over he was discharged from the naval service, went to Asia
+Minor, where he saw many strange countries, wrote letters to the
+American newspapers, and in 1866 revisited his native village in
+Wales. Returning to the United States, he entered the service of the
+_New York Herald_, and went to Abyssinia as war correspondent, as
+before stated.
+
+Stanley returned to Europe after his discovery of Livingstone, in
+July, 1872, and published his narrative, but many people in Europe
+and in America refused to believe his story. Some persons who
+thought themselves expert in knowledge of African travel proved to
+their entire satisfaction that he never had been far from the coast,
+never had seen Livingstone, and that his wonderful tale was a tissue
+of romance. The Queen of England showed her belief and confidence in
+him by sending him a box of gold set with jewels, and the Royal
+Geographical Society of Great Britain, a very high and mighty body,
+showed him great honor.
+
+The attention of geographers and scientific men was now turned to
+the great Lake Tanganyika, about which very little was known. The
+outlet of the lake was as yet undiscovered. The secret sources of
+the Nile were unknown, and the great river that reaches the Congo
+coast from the interior was then, so far as men knew, lost in the
+foam of the cataracts above. Even the already famous lake known as
+the Victoria Nyanza was indistinctly sketched on the maps, and
+people familiar with African exploration were uncertain whether that
+great body of water was a lake or a chain of lakes.
+
+Stanley was asked by the editor of the _London Daily Telegraph_ if
+he could settle these great questions if he were commissioned to go
+to Africa. He replied, "While I live there will be something done.
+If I survive the time required to perform all the work, all shall be
+done." James Gordon Bennett was asked by cable if he would join in
+the new expedition. His sententious reply flashed under the ocean
+was: "Yes. Bennett." And Stanley's second great work was already
+determined upon.
+
+Only six weeks were allowed for preparation, and when it was noised
+abroad that Stanley was taking another expedition into the heart of
+Africa, he was overwhelmed with offers of volunteer assistants, and
+with a great variety of strange contrivances to help him on his
+journey. Finally, all preparations being concluded, he left England
+August 15, 1874, accompanied by only three white men, Frank and
+Edward Pocock and Frederick Barker. These men, with the goods and
+other needed articles for the expedition, were sent on ahead, and
+twenty months after his last previous departure from Zanzibar,
+Stanley was once more at that point of departure, ready to begin his
+preparations for another plunge into the heart of the Dark
+Continent.
+
+Some of the black men who had been with him on his previous journey,
+when he searched for Livingstone, were found at Zanzibar, and they
+were all eager to go with him again, and when he was ready to depart
+he had in his company 224 persons, some of the black men taking
+their wives with them. The company after leaving Zanzibar landed at
+Bergamoyo, on the mainland, November 13, 1874, and five days later
+his column boldly advanced into the heart of the Dark Continent. The
+general direction of the expedition was at first nearly westerly,
+then turning to the north it was aimed for Victoria Nyanza. The
+march was obstructed by marshy regions, overflowing with recent
+rains. Moist exhalations and poisonous vapors prevailed, and the
+first month was a gloomy one. Stanley's own weight in thirty-eight
+days fell from 180 pounds to 130 pounds, and the three young
+Englishmen with him were greatly reduced in strength and flesh. One
+of these, Edward Pocock, was prostrated, and though he was carried
+back to the high, dry table land nearer the coast, he died and was
+buried in that lonely region.
+
+By January 21, 1875, 20 of the black men of the expedition had died,
+many were sick and disabled, and 89, discouraged by their
+misfortunes, deserted. They were now in a hostile region, and were
+attacked by natives day after day in succession, but after much hard
+fighting they got away and labored onward toward the Victoria
+Nyanza, which they reached on January 27th, near its southern shore.
+This event was celebrated with great joy and cheerfulness; they felt
+that they were out of the wilderness. Six weeks were now consumed in
+a voyage around Victoria Nyanza.
+
+During the absence of the exploring party, Frederick Barker, who had
+been left in the camp on the lake, died of fever, leaving Pocock and
+Stanley the only white men in the party. It was here that Stanley
+met King Mtesa, the King of Uganda, a benevolent and mild-mannered
+Pagan, who had previously been converted to Mohammedanism, and now
+accepted the Christian religion with equal cheerfulness and
+good-nature.
+
+On his way westward Stanley passed through the regions of King
+Rumanika, an eccentric character, at whose court the white man heard
+many strange stories of unknown regions in the heart of the
+continent. From this point Stanley went southwardly to explore that
+part of Lake Tanganyika which lies south, and this he found to be
+three hundred and twenty miles long, averaging a width of
+twenty-eight miles. It has no known outlet, and a sounding line of
+two hundred and eighty feet found no bottom.
+
+His next march from Tanganyika to the River Lualaba was toilsome and
+perilous and beset with dangers almost incredible. At Nyangwe
+Stanley touched the most distant point in Central Africa ever
+reached before by white man. Here he met with Tippoo Tib, the famous
+Arab trader. This man, who has always seemed to be master of the
+destinies and fortunes of the wild, roving tribes in the interior,
+agreed to accompany Stanley on his exploration of the Lualaba or
+Great River. If it had not been for this agreement with Tippoo Tib,
+it is most likely that Stanley's expedition would have ended then
+and there, and we never should have known, as we now know, that the
+Congo and the Lualaba are one river, the second largest in the
+world. Its line extends from its month on the west coast of Africa
+more than half-way across the continent, and it has its rise in the
+great lakes of the interior. To this vast stream Stanley has given
+the name of Livingstone.
+
+The object of Stanley's journey now was to throw light on the
+western half of the continent, which was then represented on the
+maps by a blank, through which meandered a few vague and uncertain
+lines representing rivers, guessed at but not known. Stanley got on
+better with the natives than did any of those who had gone before
+him, for he was wise, patient, and gentle, and yet so firm and
+decided that he was held in great awe and respect by the black men
+wherever he was known. Leaving the river and deflecting to the
+westward, he struggled on through a forest matted and interlaced
+with vines, swarming with creeping things, damp and reeking with
+vapors, and dripping with moisture. It was a most intolerable and
+horrid stage of the journey. When again he struck the great river he
+resolved to go by land no further. Here he was abandoned by Tippoo
+Tib, who refused to go on. Stanley resolutely set himself to work
+building and buying canoes, and led by his own English-built boat,
+the Lady Alice, his expedition started finally down the river, which
+here flows due north. The fleet was twenty-three in number, and was
+loaded with stores, goods, and supplies.
+
+[Illustration: Stanley shooting the Rapids of the Congo.]
+
+It was a wonderful voyage. The explorers were harassed at times by
+savage tribes, some of them believed to be cannibals, who attacked
+the strangers from shore, or in pure wantonness, as they drifted
+down the stream. Sickness and hunger were often their lot, and they
+were overtaken by tropical storms. In some places, too, they
+encountered rapids and cataracts, around which their fleet had to be
+dragged through paths cut in the primeval forest while the savages
+hovered around them. The forests were populous with wild beasts;
+chimpanzees and gorillas, monkeys, and all manner of four-footed
+things infested the clambering vines that festooned the trees. They
+were once attacked by an hippopotamus, and elephants and
+rhinoceroses were never far away. At a point below where the great
+river turns from its great northerly course and flows westward, just
+above the equator, was discovered a series of cataracts, seven in
+all, the first of which was named Livingstone Falls and the seventh
+Stanley Falls. The natives from this point downward to the mouth of
+the Congo had lost something of their natural ferocity, as they had
+been tamed by trade from the west coast, and great was the rejoicing
+of Stanley's Zanzibar men when they encountered native warriors with
+firearms in their hands, for this showed that they had reached a
+people supplied by traders from the Congo coast.
+
+The passing of the last group of cataracts was attended by numerous
+dangers. In spite of all their efforts, canoes were sometimes
+carried over the falls and wrecked, and on June 3d, Frank Pocock,
+the last of Stanley's white companions, was drowned in the Congo by
+the upsetting of a boat. Pocock was a brave, faithful, and devoted
+follower of Stanley, who has paid a touching tribute to the
+manliness, affection, and courage of the young Englishman who lies
+buried in the savage wilderness of the Congo.
+
+Very soon, as they drew nearer to the west coast, in the latter part
+of the summer of 1877, sickness, distress, and famine pressed hard
+upon the way-worn travellers. They were destitute of nearly
+everything that could sustain nature. The natives refused to sell
+supplies, and starvation stared them in the face. Knowing that a
+trading-post was established at Embomma, a two days' journey down
+the river, Stanley wrote on an old piece of cotton cloth a letter
+asking for help, which was sent to the trading-post by his swiftest
+runners. This letter was written in Spanish, French, and also in
+English, Stanley in his anxiety and despair leaving no means untried
+to reach the unknown traders whom he heard were at Embomma. The men
+into whose hands this three-fold message fell were English and
+Portuguese. Their response was prompt and generous. The messengers
+were sent back, followed by a small caravan laden with ample
+supplies of food and the necessaries of life, greatly to the relief
+of the starving people who, on the arrival of this timely aid, had
+eaten nothing for thirty hours. On August 9, 1877, the nine hundred
+and ninety-ninth day from the date of their departure from Zanzibar,
+Stanley's company, now numbering one hundred and fourteen blacks and
+one white man, met the generous traders and merchants of Embomma,
+who received the way-worn voyagers that had crossed the Dark
+Continent. From the mouth of the Congo the expedition was carried by
+steamer to Kabinda, a seaport a short distance up the coast, whence
+they were taken to the port of San Paolo de Loanda, where they
+embarked on board a British man-of-war and were taken to Cape Town;
+thence, touching at Port Natal, they steamed to Zanzibar, where they
+arrived on November 20, 1877. Long since given up for dead, the
+Zanzibar men were greeted by their kindred with signs of
+thanksgiving, tears and cries of joy. They had crossed the heart of
+the continent, doubled the great Cape, and were again at home.
+
+Stanley returned to England from Zanzibar, arriving in December,
+1877. The King of the Belgians had been planning an expedition to
+open up the Congo country to trade, and now requested Stanley to
+take command of his expedition. Stanley undertook the management of
+the new organization and returned to Africa in 1879, where he
+remained nearly six years, hard at work on the Congo, making roads,
+establishing stations, and opening the way for commerce. The Congo
+Free State, founded by King Leopold, lies chiefly south of the great
+bend of the river, and contains an area of 1,508,000 square miles,
+with a population of more than 42,000,000. The articles collected
+from the African trade at points along the great river, are ivory,
+palm-oil, gum, copal, rubber, bees-wax, cabinet woods, hippopotamus
+teeth and hides, monkey skins, and divers other things. Stanley now
+made brief visits to Europe and the United States. While he was in
+this country, in the winter of 1886 and 1887, he was summoned back
+to Europe to take once more command of an African expedition to
+rescue Emin Pasha, governor of the province of Equatorial Africa.
+Emin is the Egyptian name of Dr. Schnitzler. He has been generally
+known throughout Africa as Emin Pasha, and was governor of the
+province which is one of the outlying posts of the Egyptian
+government, when the revolt in the Soudan took place. When General
+Gordon was besieged in Khartoum, the province of Emin Pasha was cut
+off from the rest of Egypt, and Emin was shut up in the region north
+of the Albert Nyanza, whose capital is Lado, on one of the minor
+branches of the White Nile.
+
+To relieve him in his isolation and necessity, a subscription was
+started in England, and once more, equipped with men, arms,
+ammunition, and other supplies, Stanley sailed for Africa in
+January, 1887, making his head-quarters as before at Zanzibar. The
+supplies for the expedition were shipped directly to the Congo and
+carried up stream by steamers. At Zanzibar, Stanley's old friend
+Tippoo Tib was met, and he signed an agreement making him Governor
+of Stanley Falls to defend that post against all comers, a salary
+being guaranteed him. Then, accompanied by Tippoo Tib, Stanley went
+to the mouth of the Congo by the way of the Cape of Good Hope,
+reaching the river March 18, 1887; then, ascending the stream on
+which he had met so many hardships and endured so much suffering, he
+carried his force of nearly one thousand men, and his supplies,
+arms, and ammunition, to the relief of Emin Pasha, an enormous
+quantity altogether. The white companions of Stanley on this
+expedition were Major Barttelot, who had served with distinction
+under General Wolseley in Egypt, Major Sir Andrew Clarke, Lieutenant
+Stairs, Captain Nelson, Dr. Park, Rose Troup, Mountjoy Jephson,
+William Bonny, and Mr. Jameson. Of these, two returned to England
+before the termination of the journey, and three perished during the
+wanderings of the expedition through forty-five hundred miles of
+trackless wilderness, pestilential marshes, and regions populous
+with hostile savages. From June, 1887, to December, 1889, the party
+was lost to the world and no definite news from it reached
+civilization.
+
+The expedition, which had been divided into two parts, generally
+pursued its way in a northeastward course. Major Barttelot was left
+on the Aruwimi, at Yambuya, with 257 men and the main part of the
+stores, to await the coming of the promised reinforcements from
+Tippoo Tib. A long delay ensued, and troubles broke out in
+consequence (it is said) of the rash and imperious demeanor of Major
+Barttelot, and finally Barttelot was murdered and the entire
+rear-guard was broken down by desertion and pillage. Jameson
+collected the remains of the party, but he soon after died, and Mr.
+Bonny succeeded to the command and collected and kept the men
+together. Meanwhile, Stanley's march ahead was made with many
+difficulties, and he encountered rapid streams and other obstacles
+unforeseen and unexpected. Toward the end of December, 1887,
+Stanley's expedition having reached the Albert Edward Nyanza, and
+still being unable to open communications with Emin Pasha, it was
+decided to return to the forest and build a fort, and, after resting
+the forces, make a new start toward the lake. This fortification,
+known as Fort Bodo, was inhabited until April, 1888, when Stanley
+pressed on, and finally found Emin Pasha and his companion, Dr.
+Casati. They had passed through the country of the dwarfs, nearly
+perishing with hunger, and when they reached the lake, Emin's
+soldiers had mutinied and he was a prisoner. Emissaries from the
+Mahdist Dervishes had stirred up the camp of Emin and caused
+inextricable confusion. Emin was reluctant to leave the province,
+and when Stanley and his white companions determined to attempt to
+reach Zanzibar by an unexplored route, Emin refused to depart. Four
+months were spent in an effort to overcome the reluctance of Emin
+Pasha and Captain Casati, who were unwilling to leave their people.
+
+Emin's plea was that ten thousand of his people would have to be
+extricated from the province and carried to the coast. After many
+and exasperating discussions, Stanley refused to wait longer, and
+Emin, who had become nearly blind, brought away with him about five
+hundred persons. The expedition then, over a southeasterly route,
+made its way toward the coast.
+
+The course of march from Albert Edward Nyanza was nearly in a direct
+line to the Uzinja country, on the southwest shore of the Victoria
+Nyanza. The party passed south of Victoria Lake and reached the east
+coast December 4, 1889. The caravan, since it left Albert Edward
+Nyanza, had dwindled from fifteen hundred to one-half that number.
+This latest journey of Stanley lasted one thousand and twelve days,
+of which hardly twenty were without tragical and perilous incidents.
+The story of the annihilation that overcame his rear-guard has been
+often told. It will probably never be settled exactly where shall be
+placed the blame for that frightful disaster.
+
+On his return from the Emin relief expedition, Stanley revisited the
+United States, accompanied by his bride whom he had lately married.
+He gave lectures in several of the larger cities of the country on
+his surprising adventures in Africa. He was now prematurely aged by
+his terrible experiences, and though his eye was still bright and
+his frame alert, care and privation had whitened his hair, exposure
+had darkened his skin and left its wrinkled impress on his forehead.
+Everywhere he was received with the greatest enthusiasm and followed
+by eager thousands, who gazed upon his face and hung with rapture on
+his words. In 1892 he returned to England, and availing himself of
+his British nationality, stood for Parliament in the District of
+Lambeth, City of London, as a Conservative candidate. Much to the
+surprise and grief of his friends he was defeated and since then he
+has remained in private life.
+
+[Signature: Noah Brooks.]
+
+
+
+
+THOMAS ALVA EDISON[24]
+
+         [Footnote 24: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+By CLARENCE COOK
+
+(Born 1847)
+
+[Illustration: Thomas Alva Edison.]
+
+
+As someone has called Leonardo da Vinci "the great Italian Yankee,"
+because of his multifarious and ingenious suggestions in the world
+of material things, so our own Edison may be called "the Yankee
+Leonardo," for, with a curiosity ranging over the whole world of
+nature, equal to that of the Italian, and with a fecundity of
+invention no less bewildering, he unites, like Leonardo, an
+imaginative and poetical vein that lifts his devices into the domain
+of Art.
+
+Yet Edison is in no respect a graceful or romantic figure such as
+Leonardo was. He reminds us rather, by the weird and cosmic nature
+of his speculations and inventions, of some one of the beings
+created by the Norse mythologists: a nineteenth century gnome,
+rough, shaggy, uncouth, wholly absorbed in his search among the
+secrets of nature, and, while working always for the good of
+mankind, dwelling in a world apart, and with neither time nor
+inclination to mix in human affairs.
+
+Thomas Alva Edison was born at Milan, Erie County, O., February 11,
+1847. He started in life hampered by poverty, by want of teaching
+and training, without friends outside his own home circle to
+encourage him in pushing his fortunes, and with small opportunity,
+in the little village where his lot had been cast, for bettering his
+condition. On his father's side he came of sturdy Dutch stock: the
+old man, who was still living in 1879 at the age of seventy-four,
+reckoned among his immediate ancestors one who lived to be one
+hundred and two years old, and another who reached one hundred and
+three. He would appear to have been, like pioneers in general,
+ready, if not obliged, to turn his hand to any employment that might
+yield a living, that must be scanty at the best; and we read of him
+as in turn a tailor, a nurseryman, a dealer, first in grain and then
+in lumber, and an agent for the sale of farm-lands. He seems to have
+been unable to do much for his boy beyond teaching him to read and
+write, stimulating his taste for reading by paying him small sums of
+money for every book he read through; he had no need to insist that
+the reading should be done thoroughly, for it was the boy's way to
+do thoroughly everything he undertook. His mother, also, helped
+Thomas in learning: she was of Scotch extraction; but, though her
+parents were from the old country, she herself was born in
+Massachusetts, where for a time she had been a school-teacher. This,
+then, with the exception of two months at the village school, was
+the limit of young Edison's education--to use the conventional
+term. The world was now to take him in hand, and show what it could
+do with material so unpromising.
+
+Before he was twelve years old, the boy had found a place as newsboy
+on the Grand Trunk Line running to Detroit. In the intervals between
+his raids upon the helpless passengers with his newspapers,
+periodicals, novels, and candies, he kept up the habit of reading,
+and by practice acquired a remarkably clear and finished
+handwriting. His next step was to secure the sole right of selling
+newspapers on the train, and he soon had four boys under him to
+assist him in the work. Having then bought a lot of old type from
+some printing-office, he rigged up a rude frame in one of the
+baggage-cars that served as a lumber-room, and then proceeded to set
+up and print a newspaper which he called the _Grand Trunk Herald_,
+and sold with the other newspapers. As he had no press, he was
+obliged to take off the impressions by rubbing the paper on the
+inked type with his hands. In some way, a copy of this newspaper
+found its way to the _London Times_, and the editor spoke of it as
+the only newspaper in the world printed on a moving train. During
+the fighting at Pittsburgh Landing in 1862, Edison printed off
+abstracts of the telegraphic news, and posted them up at the small
+country stations, thus rendering a great service to the people
+anxiously waiting for news from the field. The terminus of his train
+was Detroit, and here, for the first time, he had access to a
+library. In his enthusiasm at finding himself in virtual possession
+of such a treasure, he determined, then and there, to read the whole
+library through, as it stood, using his time between trains.
+Beginning at one shelf he read fifteen feet in a line, going through
+each book solidly from cover to cover. In this first bout, among
+other books, he read Newton's "Principia," Ure's "Scientific
+Dictionary," and Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy."
+
+All this time, by hints and suggestions, Nature had been pushing the
+youth toward the field he was finally to occupy almost by right of
+eminent domain. As yet, telegraphy was in its infancy, and the
+powers of electricity only beginning to be known. Edison had from
+the first been interested in the workings of the telegraph line
+along the railroad, and had made some experiments with a rude line
+of his own, connecting his father's home at Port Huron--a village to
+which the family had some time before removed from Milan--with the
+house of a neighbor. To do this, he had to make a battery out of
+odds and ends, old bottles, stove-pipe wire, and nails made out of
+zinc contributed by his youthful friends, who in their zeal cut
+pieces out of the zinc mats under their mothers' stoves. He had no
+one to teach him telegraphy, but an accident--if accidents there
+be--was unexpectedly to put him in the way of learning its secrets.
+The child of the station-master was in danger from a moving train;
+young Edison snatched it up and saved its life at the risk of his
+own, and the grateful father rewarded him by teaching him what he
+knew of telegraphy.
+
+Armed with this rudimentary knowledge, and with what, in addition, he
+had learned by practice, Edison passed the next few years of his life
+in moving about over the country, seeking employment less, it would
+appear, for the sake of employment than for the opportunity of
+increasing his practical knowledge of the art that was to swallow up,
+in his mind, all the other arts. But he seems to have succeeded almost
+in spite of himself. He was so eager in his chase after knowledge that
+he was continually tripping himself up. While still at his trade of
+newsboy on the Grand Trunk Railroad, he had come across, at Detroit
+probably, a copy of Fresenius' "Qualitative Analysis" and had become
+so much interested in chemistry, that alongside his printing-press he
+had fitted up a small laboratory with a chance-medley apparatus for
+experiments, and one day a bottle of phosphorus was upset, and the car
+taking fire was only saved by the energy of the conductor, who
+promptly pitched the whole apparatus, with the printing-press to boot,
+out at the door, and then gave the young Fresenius-Franklin a
+thrashing. Later we hear of him, in the course of his wanderings, set
+to watch a telegraph-machine in the absence of the operator, and to
+prove that he was on guard he was to send the word six over the line
+every half-hour. Not to be interrupted in the book he was reading, he
+contrived a device that did the work automatically. In another office
+he kept back messages while he was contriving a way to send them more
+quickly! Disappearing from this office, he appears again in another,
+this time in Memphis, Tenn. But his interest in solving the problem of
+duplicate transmission proved so absorbing that he continually
+neglected his duties, and on the occasion of a change of officers he
+was dismissed as a useless member of the staff. At Louisville he
+upsets a carboy of sulphuric acid which ruins the handsome furniture
+of a broker's office on the floor below, and again finds himself
+adrift in an unappreciative world. Yet he had proved himself, in spite
+of all drawbacks, an adept of uncommon skill in telegraphy; and so
+widespread in scientific circles was his reputation, that he was sent
+for to Boston to take charge of the main New York wire. The impression
+made by the records of his life at this time is, that he looked upon
+all these employments merely as so many opportunities for earning his
+bread while pursuing his beloved experiments, and that the
+bread-earning was the least important part of the affair. No doubt, he
+always meant to do his duty, but the ecstasy of invention and the
+thirst for discovery carried him out of himself and made him often
+oblivious of sublunary things. While in Boston he still kept up his
+experiments and perfected his duplex telegraph, but it was not brought
+into successful operation until 1872.
+
+In 1871 he came to New York, and having attracted the attention of
+the Stock Exchange by some ingenious suggestions put forth while
+busied in repairing the machine that recorded quotations, he was
+made Superintendent of the Gold and Stock Company, and brought out
+his invention of the printing-telegraph, by which the fluctuations
+of the stock-market in any part of the country are instantly
+recorded on narrow strips of paper.
+
+[Illustration: Thomas A. Edison--The Wizard of Menlo Park.]
+
+The immediate success of this invention, and the great demand for
+the machines, led him to establish a workshop for their manufacture
+in Newark, N. J. But soon the need of still more space, and the
+desire for freedom from interruption while at his work, obliged him
+to give up Newark, and he found new quarters at Menlo Park, N. J.--a
+bare plot of barren acres destitute of natural attraction of any
+kind, unless it be--what to Edison indeed is a great charm--an
+uninterrupted view of the sky; a place virtually unknown before he
+planted there the rude buildings that house his wonderful
+inventions; yet now a place known to scientific men all over the
+world; the Mecca of many a mind seeking to wrest from Nature her
+dearest secrets.
+
+No doubt, many of the inventions that have made Edison famous must
+be ascribed in their conception and ripening' to various periods of
+his life, but to the popular mind they are all associated with the
+wizard's present home, from whence for several years the bulletins
+of inventions--playful, useful, necessary, revolutionary--often as
+simple in their mechanism as they are astonishing in their results,
+have been given to a delighted world. Some of Edison's inventions
+have a character at present of little more than picturesque
+playfulness, such as the Phonograph, perhaps the most remarkable of
+these minor inventions; the Aerophone, by which sounds are amplified
+without loss of distinctness; the Megaphone, an instrument which,
+inserted in the ear, so magnifies sounds that faint whispers may be
+heard a thousand feet; the Phonometer, for measuring the force of
+the soundwaves caused by the human voice; the Microtasimeter, for
+measuring small variations in temperature. This has been tested for
+so small a variation as 1/24000 of a degree Fahrenheit, and in 1878
+was used to detect the presence of heat in the sun's corona. The
+most familiar of these lesser inventions is the Phonograph by which
+sounds are made self-recording and capable of being repeated. While
+this curious invention--almost childish in its simplicity--is as yet
+little more than a plaything, and has proved of small utility, it
+makes, nevertheless, a strong appeal to the imagination when we
+reflect that by its aid the voice of any human being may be
+transmitted to ages far in the future, and its living tones be heard
+long after he who uttered them has returned to the dust.
+
+But, while these inventions have the charm that invests "the
+fairy-tales of science," the world-wide fame of Edison rests upon
+greater gifts to the world; the various improvements he has made in
+the telegraph, and the perfection to which he has brought the
+electric light. The invention of the telephone, by which persons are
+enabled to converse with one another at very long distances, and by
+which concerts, operas, and orations or sermons in one city can be
+heard by an audience assembled in another, is one of the most
+remarkable of Edison's achievements, and one the usefulness of which
+in various directions it is easy to foresee. The idea of the
+transmission of messages in opposite directions by the same wire was
+one that had early occurred to Edison, but he was long in reducing
+it to practice. The secret once discovered, however, he rapidly
+progressed until he had brought out the sextuple telegraph, where we
+believe the ability of the instrument rests at present.
+
+The inventor next turned his mind to the study of the electric lamp,
+in which he saw great possibilities. He believed that he could
+produce a light that should be cheaper than gas, and also purer,
+more steady, and more to be depended on. He rejected the principle
+of the Voltaic arc involved in the Brush patent then in use, by
+which the electric current was passed through a strip of platinum or
+other metal that requires a high temperature to melt, because in
+practice it was found that in fact, owing to the difficulty of
+regulating the flow of the electric current, the medium did often
+melt. He therefore sought for a medium that should be practically
+indestructible, and believed that it would be found in pure carbon
+enclosed in a vacuum. After many trials with one and another
+substance, he at length found that by employing slender strips of
+card-board reduced by intense heat to carbon, connecting them with
+the wires leading from the machine, and enclosing them in glass
+bulbs from which the air had been extracted, the desired result
+could be produced. The next step to accomplish was the division of
+the light, so that any number of lamps could be supplied by the same
+pair of wires--a condition absolutely necessary if the invention
+were to be of practical utility as applied to the lighting of
+factories, public buildings, or private households, where-ever, in
+short, many lights are needed. This was finally accomplished, and in
+December, 1879, an exhibition was given at Menlo Park of a complete
+system of lighting. This first demonstration of the possibility of
+light-division created a great interest in scientific circles all
+over the world, especially as scientific experts had testified
+before the British House of Commons that the feat was impossible.
+The Edison incandescent burner is now in use in every city, town,
+and hamlet in this country, and it would seem as if it must of
+necessity before long drive the costly, unhealthy, and dangerous
+coal-gas out of use for illuminating purposes, although we believe a
+wide field of usefulness lies before the coal-gas as a substitute
+for coal in our kitchens.
+
+Thomas Edison has received few public honors from his countrymen;
+but the nature of his work has been such as to make his name a
+household word throughout his native country; and not only by the
+admiration excited by his genius--for it deserves no less a
+name--but by the practical, every-day benefits he has conferred, he
+has earned a place in the good-will and esteem of his fellows such
+as seldom falls to the lot of man.
+
+[Signature: Clarence Cook.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8, by Various
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