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BUNN’S OBITUARY BUNCOMBE -- The North Carolina Congressman Runs Amuck in Rhetoric. -- Senator Vance’s Death Causes Him to Mix His Metaphors In a Dreadful Manner. -- The Superlatives of the English Language Exhausted and Elijah Pogram Not in it for a Minute. -- Senatorial sorrow is one of the institutions of the republic. Congressional grief is as much a part of our national life as taxes. Without the eulogies which bereaved representatives pour from overburdened hearts in celebration of their deceased colleagues, the Congressional Record would be – dull. As one who has the incurable habit of reading books, and an occasional attack of reviewing. I am not prepared to call the Congressional Record dull. Anything so absolutely useless could never be anything but amusing In an ordinary library, where the books are properly arranged according to the ideas they represent, the Congressional Record is invariably placed among the belle lettres. Even if this had not been the invariable custom among the diletanti, it would now be, since one of the finest gems of obitual eloquence ever penned by an American has been incorporated within its impassioned pages
Congressman Benjamen H. Bunn of North Carolina, lamenting Senator Zeulon Vance of the same state, opens his speech as follows
“Mr. Speaker, in that sweetest and tenderest, the sublimest, and most beautiful love tragedy that was—ever written—the thrilling, the heart-moving, the soul-electrifing play of Romeo and Juliet—Mercutio, the wit of that play, is made to say, when he had received a fatal wound in his breast by the hand of Tybalt, “Tis hot, so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but ‘tis enough, ‘twill serve.’
“And so the wound of bereavement which has been made in the hearts of his countrymen by that cruel dagger, death, which removed from time to immortality the spirit of the lamented Vance, is deeper than the soundless depths of old ocean and broader than the whole Christian church, and it will remain there until the last ripple in the river of time has been mingled with the waves in the ocean of eternity.
“And, now, Mr. Speaker, in coming to pay my humble but sincere and heart-nursed tribute to transcendent worth, and exalted greatness and loftiest excellence,’ I feel the poverty of human expression and the weakness of strongest language, for words, however expressive and graphic, are at best but poor vehicles for the transmission of those feelings, when the heart is swept by the rushing billows of grief that sweep o’er the ocean of an overwhelming bereavement. And so, my tongue is in the coffin of Vancer, and I can only bow my head and weep o’er the memories of him who is now sleeping where the myrtles grow and the daisies peep “
There are carpers—small and hypercritical souls—who might maintain that the fact that Mr Bunn’s tongue was in the coffin with Vance, would be more or less inconvenient at the outset of a speech But on reflection one recognizes that it could have been no more of an inconvenience than that met with by Mark ‘Antony when his heart lay in the coffin there with Casesar, and that the embarrassment of Mr Bunn could be no more distressing than that of Antony s [?]steners after he had begged them to lend him their ears, and they had sweetly complied with the request
The public had long been aware of the feebleness of health suffered by Senator Vance, but not knowing the nature of his complaint, can not but feel some surprise at learning that ‘ he went down like the blazing meteor, more brilliant and dazzling and resplendent in its downward coruscations than when in pristine glory and unsullied radiance it first glistened in the firmament with planets” One has no demur to make to Mr Bunn’s tributes to the manysidedness of, the lamented senator, nor to the experience, disinterestedness and loftiness of mind of that well-known and justly celebrated statesman There tributes could hardly have been expressed in more words But what are words for, if not to be used?
But the public was, perhaps, not prepared for the following statements, which inform of qualities possessed by Mr Vance, the existence of which was not commonly known
“In the fields of literary culture” says Mr Dunn, “and classic research, Senator Vance was indeed suberb, for his speeches, while containing golden nuggets of ripest wisdom, sparkled with gems of richest humor and glistened with the auroral lights of the finest poetic fancy. Thousands have been charmed and enchanted with the richly blooming flowers of his poetic garden and lulled and soothed by the rhythmic flow of his graceful winding current of mellifluent rhetoric. All of his speeches were forceful in their presentation of truth and facts, noble in their ethical teachings of duty to country, luscious with the mellowest fruitage of lofty patriotism, opulent with the gems of successfully garnered wisdom, kingly in the imperial sweep of their royal eloquence, and regal in the magnificent drapery of the most ornate diction They will prove monuments to the fame of Senator Vance more lasting than marble, for on the adamantine and invulnerable surgace of their imperishable worth, unequaled merit, superb splendor and magnificent beauty the corroding and devastating moth of decay will never fix a fang”
Living, as we Nebraskans do, in the very lair of the Corporation Cormorant and the Venal Vampire, and being acquainted, as we all are, with their unusual and somewhat spectacular anatomy, so to speak, we cannot ell the surprise that may be experienced by people of other localities at the fact that the Devastating Moths of Decay, should have fangs Night moths have antennae Why should not devastating moths have fangs? As a piece of natural information this is not without it value, and is respectfully referred to Prof Daniels of Omaha. But even Nebraskans may feel some surprise that there should be such a thing as a ripe nugget—which means, one must suppose, a juicy and matured nugget, ready for the picking This also is valuable, however, in the way of information and perhaps explains better than [?] Mr. William J Bryan could do why gold is so scarce An untimely frost must have nipped the nugget-bearing trees of Colorado, or perhaps the season is early and the nuggets are as yet too green for packing
Mr Bunn chokes back his tears to say: “When the sad news of his death was sent on the quivering bosom of the electric current throughout his native state it opened the floodgates to the briniest waters in the stream of human bereavement, for all felt that one of North Carolina a truest, and noblest and grandest sons had been stricken down like a flower in fullest bloom and beauty.”
Even the ignorant have been aware that electricity was possessed of volts and ohms, but it has remained for Representative Benjamen H Bunn—this cannot indicate surely that the representative’s name is Hot Cross Bunn—to enlighten the lay public on the existence of this electrical quality which is referred to as a quivering bosom The electricians have been strangely alient about this. One does not venture to hazard a guess as to their motives. The least they can do under the circumstances is to explain themselves.
It seems a pity to interpolate so many remarks in the stream of Mr Punn’s eloquence. The only consolation that can be extended to him for this interference with the onward flow of his rhetoric is that boulders interposed in a river’s flow seem sometimes to add to its tumult and its beauty. But then, would it, after all, be possible to add to the beauty of Mr. Bunn’s lachrymose verbosity? Perhaps not. One says it with humility. Perhaps not. Listen to this:
“But alas! this stately oak, the very monarch in the forest of humanity, with all of its widespreading and luxuriant branches of intellectual adornment, bathing in the glad, warm sunlight of affectionate esteem and idolatrous admiration, has been stricken down by the inevitable bolt of death, and he now sleeps in the peaceful hush of the quiet grave. But men may stalk across the stage of existence and make reputation as bright and as radiant as the blush of a dewdrop under the trembling kiss of a morning sunbeam, but never will the brilliancy of his reputation be surpassed by mortal man, and never will his name hold a second place on the tablet that recites the glories of intellectual splendor; and though he has gone from us forever, yet he has left behind him an example, and an influence and a memory that will prove a blessing to his country and a benediction to his people, for their radiant light will blaze for our guidance the glorious path of patriotic duty he so nobly trod and encourage us to live like him who has gone to his God”
Reputation bearing any resemblance to a dewdrop—even a remote resemblance—are rare among statesmen But they are not necessarily impossible.
But these remarks are superfluous We hasten to the peroration It is here.
‘Yes; he has left behind a radiant stream of effulgent glory. Like the brilliant sun, which sinks behind the distant hilltops and leaves behind a golden stream of gorgeous splendor, making the whole western horizon seem as if the most opulent dye pots in the studio of the angels had been upset and had leaked through upon the clouds thus giving them the tintings of celestial glories, so his sun of existence has sunk behind the hilltops of death and left behind a stream of memories that will never fade from the tablets of our hearts Unlike the glories of the setting sun, which soon lose their gorgeous colorings in the bosom of darkness, his resplendent virtues will not lose their brilliancy in the shadows of death’s dark night, for they were dug from the mines of richest and purest ore, and bright in glory’s jeweled thrown they will shine forever more.
“On Fame’s eternal camping ground His silent tent is spread And glory guards with solemn round The bivouac of our dead”
Concerning this last paragraph even the most audacious reviewer could have nothing to say It speaks for itself The Congressional Record must maintain its place on the shelf with the poets and the impossibles—pardon, that was the type-setter’s mistake. One should have said the immortals
After all, the nation can afford to let its representatives be prodigal with words in burying our Caesars It is much better to spend words than $20,000 of the nation’s money for consolatory stimulants, as when the venerated Leland Stanford shuffled off senatorial burdens and went into the unknown. Words are cheap They also endure for ever. The first reflection is offered to the taxpayers The second to Mr. Bunn Both remarks are meant to be cheerful and encouraging
ELIA W. PEATTIE. -- AN ICE HOUSE FIRE.
A spark from a passing engine set fire to the Union Pacific ice house, located east of the Union Pacific shops, yesterday morning about 9 o’clock The Durant Hose company was prompt in placing its apparatus in working order and the city fire department was also on hand quickly. Owing to the insufficiency of the water pressure the fire gained considerable headway and spread over the entire roof of the building before it was placed under control. A line of hose 150 feet in length was unable to throw a stream of water above the eaves of the one-story building The Durant engine, however, raised the pressure sufficiently to extinguish the flames. The loss will not exceed $500
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DIFFERENCES OF WORSHIP -- How People Worship God in Various Lands—Havana and Philadelphia -- The Cathedral of Christopher Columbus in Cuba and Its Strange Atmosphere. -- A Quaker Meeting House in Philadelphia and Its Quaint Services—A Poet’s Idea of Worship. -- There those who love all their lives to worship at one shrine, and who feel at home with their God, and at peace with conscience only when they kneel in some familiar pew and listen to a voice speaking words which awake an unquestioning acquiescence in their own hearts and minds. But there are others, more curious, eager to get at the reason why men worship at all, or worship at all, or worship in different ways, who have
HERMANN
met with revelations in many sacred edifices.
This is how one poet—a woman—worships out on the coast of the Pacific:
Forgive me that I hear thy creeds Unawed and unafraid: They are too small for one whose ears Have heard God’s organ played; Who in wide, noble solitudes, In simple faith has prayed.
Forgive me that I cannot kneel And worship in this pew, For I have knelt in western dawns, When the stars were large and few, And the only fonts God gave me were The deep leaves filled with dew.
And so it is I worship best With only the soft air About me, and the sun’s warm gold Upon my brow and hair; For then my very heart and soul Mount upward in swift prayer.
My church has been a yellow space Celled over with blue heaven, My pew upon a noble hill Where the fir trees were seven, And the stars upon their slender tops Were tapers lit at even.
My knees have known no cushions rich, But the soft, emerald sad; My aisles have been the forest paths Lined with the crimson-rod: My choir, the birds and winds and waves— My only parlor, God. -- MISS ANNA GOULD’S COUNT
The young Frenchman who has captured Miss Anna Gould, daughter of Jay Gould and heires to about $15,000,000 is Count Jean de Castellane. He belongs to one of the best families in France, is handsome, wealthy, exceedingly well dressed and 21 years of age. It is said his bride will settle $2,000,000 upon him. -- My sleeple is the dome of snow From the blue land that swells; My rosary the acorns small That drop from bronzed cells; And the only bells that summoned me Were the rhododendron bells,
At Easler, God’s own hand adorned These dim, sweet, sacred bowers With delicate honeysuckle vins And all the west’s wild flowers; And lest they droop in mellow nights, He cooled them with light showers,
The crimson salmon-berry bells And wild violets were here, And these great dogwood stars that shine Thro’ tendor vistus clear? And the dear lilies purely meet For a young virgin’s bier.
Wild currant blossoms broke and bled, Like Mary’s tortured heart; The gold musk in the marshy spots Curled tempting lips apart[?] And I saw the shy, blue lupine, too Up from the warm earth start.
The clover blossoms, pink and white, Rimmed round the silver mere; The thrifty dandelion lit: Her dawn-lamps far and near; There was one white bloom that thro’ the Dusk Shone liquid like a tear.
I watched the dawn come up the east, Like angels, chaste and still;
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ABSOLUTELY PURE -- I felt my heart beat wild and strong, My veins with white fire thrill; For it was Easter morn—and Christ Was with me on the hill!
Oh, every little feathered throat Swelled full with lyric song, And the ocean played along the shore, Full, passionate and strong— An organ grand whose each wave-note Was sounded, sweet and long.
And so it is I worship best With only the soft air About me, anti the sun’s warm gold Upon my brow and hair; For then my very heart and soul Mount upward in swift prayer.
Forgive me that I hear thy creeds Unawed and unafraid; They are too small for one whose ears Have heard God’s organ played; Who in vast, noble solitudes, In simple faith has prayed.
These are the stanzas of Ella Higginson of New Whatcom, Wash.
That they will awaken a response in many hearts one cannot doubt. But there are those who must have their roofed sanctuary and their formulated roofed sanctuary and their formulated belief, and yet others who, though they need no written creed, worship best among other worshipers.
A few services among the thousands one has attended are liable to stand out clear and distinct—just as a few days out of the millions lived, someway, imprint themselves upon the brain, and reoccur to the mind in moments of reflection.
Two services which I recollect—two of the several which reoccur to me with photographic distinctness—are at the very antipodes of each other as to method, and result and impression.
One was at Havana in the old cathedral of Christopher, Columbus. Dirty, narrow and ill smelling was the street without. The sun beat on the quaint old walls of the stuccoed buildings, and they reflected again the palpitating heat. But within the great edifice the air was cool almost to chillness, and the perfume of the incense displaced all other odors. There were no ‘worshipers’ excepting the fifty priests with shaven crowns, who sat facing each other, int[e?]ning from great books which lay before them on lecterns—or small desks, shaped like lecterns. The cathedral contained no seats save the two rows occupied by the priests at the center of the nave.
The service was one, I believe, for the success of the many services being held at the other churches of the city at that hour. These priests were of the type that has become familiar by the paintings of the German painters. They were fat—every one of them—drowsy, dull, mechanical in their interminable intoning. They looked out of the corners of their eyes at the people who silently moved about from station to station, or knelt before the altars. Sometimes a smile spread among them. They seemed to be vry jocular, in a gross way, and to hav undiscovered means for conveying a joke. There was no atmosphere of devotion. Nothing could have been more mechanical than that service. No priests could have been in greater contrast than these were with the Catholic priests of the United States. The cathedral was impressive as to architecture, and there was even a sort of simplicity about it not to be expected in Cuba. But the altars were lawdry. Something insidious, unspiritual, deadly and tyrannical seemed to pervade the spot.
And yet—amid the tiresome intoning, the slow swinging of the little censers, the dull mechanic worship, a young woman crept in. She shrank from the vulgarly curious glances of the priests, She crept on up to the altar of the Virgin. Those sidelong glances followed her. He face was dusky—she had, perhaps, negro as well as Spanish blood. She was beautiful and young, and dressed in drifting garments of white, save for the mantilla on her delicate head. She sank there before that altar, and murmured heaven knows what bitter prayer of repentance. But the tears dropped down her face. The intoning rose and fell monotonously. Out in the court an old monkpaced to and fro, reading, and sucking a sapodillas The bees buzzed outside. A palmetto swung its great leaves quite in the door. Cool and quiet, in the great church—for that low murmuring of voices was but the accompaniment of the silence. But in the heart of the worshiper was—but it is profane to try to guess. When she walked out her face was lifted and still -- MISS ANNA GOULD’S COUNT
The young Frenchman who has captured Miss Anna Gould, daughter of Jay Gould and heires to about $15,000,000 is Count Jean de Castellane. He belongs to one of the best families in France, is handsome, wealthy, exceedingly well dressed and 21 years of age. It is said his bride will settle $2,000,000 upon him. -- wet with tearsm but here was a peace there—a peace snatched from some despair. And suddenly the place grew holy, Suddenly it was the house of God . . . . . . . . .
A Quaker meeting house in Philadelphia, with a straight, narrow gallery, stiff, seats, plain walls, a great thing shaped like the quarter of a convex circle back of the elder’s seats, and quiet like that of solitude. Outside, passing and passing, beyond the high fence, the respectable and pleasant Americans—how different from that mad Sunday crowd that riots all day long in the streets of Havanna! Go one side of the church sat the men. On the other side the women. Some of them wore their hats. Others were in fashionable garb, and sat with uncovered heads. Some of the women were elegantly but plainly dressed. Others wore the Quaker drab, and the quaint bonnets. There was a fascinating variety in these bonnets, for all of their sameness, and a women could not help the reflection that they must cost a good deal—almost as much as some of the Paris creations, that tempt the more frivolous.
At first there was only a sense of strangeness, as if one were in a foreign country. But by and by a peculiar psychological fact made itself delicately
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ABSOLUTELY PURE -- apparent. It was the gentle and gracious diffusion of a marvelous quietude of spirit—the insistent spirit of peace, reaching from those cultivated souls to one’s own wayward and impatient one. I remember I looked deep into the heart of the red rose I held in my hand. No rose had ever seemed so beautiful before. It had a ruddy and perfumed message from the Most High. I sucked a spiritual sweet from it, lovelier than any of that rose’s sweet sisterhood. But an elder with a long, long face looked at me sharply, as if he thought I was irreverent, and I dropped the rose, and stared fixenly at the row of men and women in the Elders’ seats. It was very curious, but they all looked alike, and as if they had been cut our of hazel nuts—you have seen odd little faces out from hazel nuts, haven’t you?’
Yet for all this odd quaintness of feature, the expression had something refined and lofty. In spit of the formalism there was tenderness. In spite of the gravity there was sweetness. And indeed, on the brows of some of the women there seemed to brood so chaste and glad a spirit, that one felt sanctified as one looked.
It was one of the women who broke the silence. Slowly her thin hands reached to her bonnet strings, and untied them. She laid the bonnet on the seat before her, waited a moment, while the audience fixe a sort of hypnotized gaze on her, and then she knelt. We all rose. The prayer was burdened and hampered with biblical phraseology. The sweet old voice gave expression to no direct thanksgiving or supplication. She spoke only in similes, using bible words. It was involved and subtle to a degree. One seemed enmeshed in a foreign tongue, or in some ancient formula. Yet it was sweet because she was sweet and because the sky was so blue without, and the tender air rested so softly on one’s cheeks—and above all, because that peaceful hypnotism rested on the spirit like a benediction. When she had arisen, one of the elders spoke. His phraseology was not only involved and biblical, but laden with constant reiterations. One could imagine he had said the same thing in substance year in and year out. He could look within and search his own spirit, but no imagination illumed him, and his search was made by the light of one little candle, well tended and gratefully preserved.
That was the end. One of the elders rose presently and shook hands with the men sitting next to him. The people arose, too, and went out decently, not using the house of God as they would a street corner, for idle gossip. And peace was with us.
ELIA W. PEATTIE. -- AUSTRIA’S EMPRESS TALKS. -- Moritz Jokat, the Hungarian Author, Describes Her Majesty.
At the court reception held in Ofen castle, Hungary, a few days ago, Moritz Jokal, the famous Hungarian novelist, poet and editor, met Empress Elizabeth of Austria for the first time since the death of Crown Prince Rudolph. The dead help of the Hapsburgs was a particular friend and favorite of the Hungarian writer, who gave invaluable aid to the prince in his “Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in Word and Picture.” The empress treasures every association of her son and loves to befriend those of whom he was fond.
As soon as she could do so without attracting too much attention, her majesty asked Jokai and one or two other friends to a neighboring room for a friendly talk. “Since the death of the crown prince.” Wrote Jokai in reporting the interview later, “I had, not been brought face to face with her majesty. Hardly an ornament on her black dress! About her neck were a Mary Stuart ruff and a row of black pearls as a necklace. Her head is covered with that magnificent hair from which hung a black veil. On her dress in the region of her heart was a small diamond butterfly, the symbol of immortality in ancient Egypt. Even today she still has the kind girl-face, more beautiful because of her sorrows. As in other days she still whispers when conversing, but every word can be understood.”
The conversation between the two gradually turned to literature, the empress asking Jokai about his coming work. He told her it was to be called “Magneta.”
“Where can I get it?” asked the empress.
“It is to appear first in a newspaper,” replied Jokai, “but afterward I intend to publish it in book form, and if your majesty will permit me, I shall take the liberty of sending you a dedicated copy.”
“I shall be glad to accept it,” answered the empress. “I always try to shorten my long journeys by reading pleasing books.”
In reply to Jokai’s assertion that he spent as much time as possible in the open air, her majesty said that she, too, devoted her life to nature. “From year to year,” she went on, “I grow to ove this power-giving nature more and more. Nature alone keeps me alive.”
“What do you think of Carmen Sylvia?” she asked suddelnyl, turning to the poet.
“I have a high opinion of her poetry, and ‘I’ admire her, especially because she loves her nation so deeply.”
“And with all.” continued the empress, “she is so friendly and good. She also has suffered much, and has been able to overcome it.”
“God protects the princesses for whom the people pray,” ejaculated Jokai, who has always been a courtier, and the interview ended. -- PART AND COUNTERPART.
The infant soul made up of images Is like a lake, itself almost unseen, But holding pictured in its “pure serene” The sky above and the surrounding trees; Till o’er the surface creeps a rising Breeze, And slowly ruffles into silver sheen Those depths of azure fringed with branching green, A flame that follows on a form that fless, As intermingled with the flow of being It loses sight in gaining sympathy, So action quenches all our primal seeing; We cannot be both part and counterpart Of outward things, and that passivity A poet praised is half the poet’s art. —ALFRED W. BENN, in The Academy. -- WITH SPOON AND CUP.
Two cupfuls equal one pint. Four cupfuls equal one quart. One teaspoonful salt to one, quart soup. One teaspoonful soda to one pint sour milk. One teaspoonful salt to two quarts flour. Two cupfuls solid butter equal one pound. Two cupfuls granulated sugar equal one pound. One teaspoonful soda to one cupful molasses. Sixteen tablespoonfuls liquid equal one cupful. One pint milk or water equals one pound. Four cupfuls flour equal one quart or one pound. One teaspoonful extract to one loaf plain cake. Three teaspoonfuls baking powder to one quart flour. One dozen eggs should weigh one and one-half pounds. Twelve tablespoonfuls dry material equal one cupful.
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CONSIDERATION FOR BIRDS
The Publication of Frances Power Cobbe's Memoirs Calls Attention to It. Ouida Writes on "Birds and Their Persecutors" in the Nineteenth Century -- A Sharp Criticism.
Strong Condemnation of Those Who Wilfullly Slaughter Them by the Wholesale for Sport.
In, the autobiography of Frances Power Cobbe, that ruling passion of her life, consideration for dumb animals appears and reappears constantly. "The horrors of scientific cruelty to animals" is constantly referred to by her. In speaking of Tennyson, she says:
"I shall account it one of the chief honors which have fallen to my lot that Tennyson asked leave, through his son, to pay me a visit. Needless to say, I accepted the offer with gratitude and fortunately Iw as at home, in our little house in Cheyne Walk, when he called on me. He sat for a long time over my fire, and talked of poetry; of the share melodious words ought to have in it; of the hatefulness of scientific cruelty, against which he was going to write again; and of the new and dangerous phases of thought even then apparent."
The publication of this book, which pushes this one idea constantly to the foreground, similtaneously with the appearance of Ouida's article in the Nineteenth Century, on the slaughter of birds, should show how women are rising against this needless destruction of the "little people of the air"
It has been frequently said that it was the vanity of women which above all things has caused this slaughter of the innocents. But it has not been the sanity of women any more than the stupidity of men. Men have snared the birds for the profit derived from their sale Women have thoughtlessly bought the birds, and their wings and breasts, because they saw them in the milliner's boxes, and finding them there, already dead and dressed, had no compunction about buying them. Nor have the women been any more culpable than those gourmands who have been willing to eat English larks, for which there is even in America an increasing sale It really seems that if there is any time when a person would feel absolutely bestial it is when his sensibilities have become so subordinated to his appetites, that he will be willing, like some foul creature of the primeval forest, to crunch a lark between his molars. Could any sacrilege have seemed more coarse to Keats that this gross devastation of the skylark which "shakes the tremulous dew from his lush clover covert?" As for Shelly who cried: "Bird thou never wert!" He would as soon have thought of masticating the Spirit of Song and Poesy itself as this bird, born to give the last accent of tender beauty to an English morning
Ouida turns her fine eloquence especially against the Italian Speaking of the capture of a great rare woodpecker that "sat upright and tragic as a figure of Napoleon on the Rock," she says. "He has no song' He is not edible, he will not live a week if caged; yet he is mercilessly traped and carried away from his native woods to die When I say that he is not edible I mean that he is not considered so; but to the Italian everything is edible; it is a nation without a palate It steeps a hare in fennel and eats salt with melons The craze for devouring birds of all kinds is a species of fury from the Alps to Etna, they crunch the delicate bodies between their jaws with disgusting relish and a lark only represents to them a succulent morsel for their spit or pasty. The trade in larks all over the world is enormous and execrable, and is as large in England as in Italy. It should at once be made penal by heavy fines on the trappers, the venders, and the eaters, or ere long no more will the lark be heard on earth. It is admitted by all who know anything of the subject that agriculture would be impossible without the aid of birds, as the larvae and developed insects of all kinds would make a desert of the entire area of cultivated land This is well know; yet all over the world the destruction of birds rages unchecked, and no attempt is made to protect them to interdict their public sale, and to enable them to next and rear their young in peace"
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NO AMERICAN ARISTOCRACY
The Failure of the Astor Family Proves This Beyond Doubt.
Romantic Story of the Rise of This Great American Family and Its Fortune.
Old Fur-Trading John Jacob Would Blush for His Dude Descendants Today.
The wharves are rotting at Astoria. ONe steps cautiously on them. Moreover, one seems never to be able to escape from these wharves For the town is built above the tide land. In and out among the wooden piers and water surges, riffing and purling, and leaving a beautiful stain of green on the dank piles.
Up above the tide lands rises an abrupt hill, with homes on it, and a church -- and a grave yard. There are pines there, of course. Where along the Oregon coast can one escape from these melancholy sentinels? The Columbia, strong and splendid, at this point really an arm of the sea, with green islands and reflective waters, "flows by, and sings an ancient song.
No American can visit this place without feeling a peculiar interest in it. It is a part of the history of the development of the first colossal American fortune. America has been more celebrated because of its material success than for any other reason And among all successes, public or private, of the material sort, there has been nothing more remarkable than the accumulation of the Astor fortune. So it is but natural then when the average American visits Astoria, that he should sigh as he looks about the quaint little place, and moralizes on several things, including his own poverty.
But the person with an imaginative mind is apt to view it with interest for a reason somewhat different. What he enjoys contemplating is the astonishing qualities for what may be called world-conquering, which distinguished John Jacob Astor, brother of a butcher, himself a German provincial, driven by penury to America, and beginning life as a peddler, with a pack on his back.
THE HOUSE OF ASTOR.
Its an old story, perhaps, but just as a means to an end let us consider the rise of John Jacob Astor. A boy named John Jacob Ashdoer left Baden more than a century ago with the equivalent of $3 in his pocket, and worked his way up the Rhine on a boat and on to the coast, spending his money to cross the German ocean. He left behind him a drunken and idle father and a stepmother of the proverbial type. In London John Jacob worked for his brother, who owned a piano factory, and by dint of almost cruel economy saved $75 in two years He also learned the English language in that time, and set out for America with the idea of making a fortune
Now the making of a fortune appears to have been no small ambition with Ashdoer. It had large qualities about it, similar to the love of discovery which had actuated the explorers who one, two and three centuries before had made the new world theirs. John Jacob was a man of imagination. He was a provincial by birth, but a cosmopolite in commercial instincts For him the atlas was a familiar book. he realized the existence of other countries besides those with which he had a personal acquaintance Something of the same spirit that dominated the merchant princes of Genoa and Naples in the thirteenth century impelled him to picture such a vast thing as an international commerce It takes imagination to think of things like that A great poet, a great fighter or a great merchant is the result of a brain that can make such vastness his own intimate, casual thought
When Ashdoer reached Baltimore he walked and rode by stage coach to New York He was in possession of seven flutes, which he desired to sell at a profit, and $25 in money He was hired by a Quaker to beat furs at $2 a week John Jacob, who was picturing an argosy plying between China and New York, beat his furs and dreamed his dreams. Then he was sent to Canada and over the northern part of New York state with a pack on his back exchanging knick knacks for furs He was also accumulating experience and practical ideas But not even the utmost economy could make his income match his necessities, and he was forced several times to apply to his brother Henry, who was a butcher in New York, for a loan Finally the brother made a proposition.
"I will give you $500 outright," he said, "if you will promise not to ask me for any money as long as you live"
John Jacob put the imaginary cargoes in those dream argosies and accepted the $500
JOHN'S BUSINESS HEAD
With this $500 he opened a shop on New Duck, now Water street, and exhibited for sale pianos sent from his brother's factory in London. He also carried a general fur and skin business In the meantime he married His wife, Sarah Todd Astor, helped him prepare the furs for market, though her hands reaked with the nauseating smell In fact, she looked after the affairs of the shop to a large extent, while he passed his time in the interior of the country, where he bartered goods with Indians and whites for pelts This was where he applied the ideas accuulated in the employ of the frugal Quaker Astor, who could see the argosies growing, never lost his concentration on details A few beads of an attractive color would be given in exchange for a valuable pelt His tongue was persuasive He selected very bright beads He took everything into consideration in making a sale -- the distance he had brought the goods, the time it had taken him, the convenience to the, purchaser and the quality of the material He somtimes sold tea for $3 a pound, and whisky for $10 a quart He belived that a fair price was just the amount that the people would pay It is said that sometimes he got a braver skin for a few trinkets and would send the skin to London wehre it would sell for $4, that he would then reinvest in cutlery which he would retail on this side $40
Meanwhile the vast interior of the new world was as a book to him. The paths of the forests, the rivers and the lakes he had made his own. He had that disregard for distance which has been one of the peculiar qualities of the Americans, and which has enabled them to handle their enormous dominations with almost the same ease that is displayed by a denizen of France or Denmark His chief trading post was at Mackinae Mich and the mission fathers gathered there and all the wild, fascinating turbulent half civilization of the frontier Up here Astor used actually to charge people a percentage for the privilege of trading with him
At last the time came when one of the ships he had dreamed of was actually his It ran between London and New York It was cheaper to own and run a vessel than it was to pay freight The vessels grew in number, and they ran to China Hut the best laid plans went aglee this time Another man had built faster ships, and they rounded the Horn from China bringing back the fresh tea of the new crop, and flooding the market before Astor's ships put into port
A FUR MONOPOLY
So he let that scheme go, and systematically started out to found a fur monopoly in the United States similar to that of the Hudson Bay company. He designed the formation of fur stations extending from St. Louis to the Pacific, and in 1811 founded the little town which bears his name, and which today broods upon its piers, growing old to the sound of the whispering water. The capital of the American Fur company was $1,000,000, all of which was furnished by Mr. Astor. Thomas Jefferson, seeing in it a development of the country's resources, indorsed the scheme. But the settlement was captured in 1812 by the British, and Astor lost much money and was forced to give up his plan Now, however, the law of compensation obtained The war, which had ruined his fur enterprise, made his tea valuable That which he had been obliged to store, and that which was still being brought from China in his easy-going vessels, became exceedingly valuable. For two years he sold ten at war prices He also bought government securities, making himself valuable to the distressed administration, and later on reaping 30 per cent profit.
Then he bought real estate. He also sold it. The idea of not selling real property which now obtains in the Astor family is really a new thing, and shows them to be opportunists It would be folly to sell real estate in New York now But there was a time when it was not folly
It was the owning of land, the assistance given to the government, and the rapid accumulation of millions that made his acceptance into society a foregone conclusion. It was very hard for people to forget that his brother was a butcher -- quite as hard as it would be for the present-day Astors to overlook a similar offense in any of their acquaintances But there had been a magnificence in his exploits, a sort of heroic quality in the way he had scoured the face of the continent for wealth -- a kind of Baranoff daring in the manner in which he had planted civilization down in the heart of the wilderness Mid continent and on the farthest rim of the new world were the marks of his energy Washington Irving gave this indomitable man his friendship This splendid restliness appealed to Fitz Green Halleck Under the influence of such friends Astor founded his great library. The civic enthusiasm which he felt, quite as much as a desire to make money, caused him to build the Astor house. Society could resist no longer this man who could lend money to an imperiled government, who could supply the needs of a metropolis, and who was as rich as a monarch.
ASTOR GENEALOGY.
The genealogy of the Astors is as follows: "Henry Astor, the butcher, died without issue, but John Jacob Astor, the furrier, left two sons. William Backhouse Astor and John Jacob Astor (II) The letter was of weak mind and was kept for many years, as some old New Yorkers will remember, in charge of an attendant in a house surrounded by high walls on Fourteenth street William Backhouse Astor inherited the bulk of the original fortune. He had three sons -- John Jacob (III), William and Henry -- named for his butcher uncle Henery married against the wishes of his family, and, though still living somewhere up the Hudson in comparative wealth was cut off with a relatively small slice of the family millions and is never taken into account when the Astor family is considered Upon his death William Astor devised his property in equal shares to his two favorable sons, John Jacob (III) and William. John Jacob, being the elder of the two, was the recognized leader of the family, and when he died, a few years ago, he was much the richer Astor, as William, though his fortune increased greatly during his life, gave much less attention to business than his elder brother. During the civil war John Jacob III, served for a time on the staff of General McClellan, and the title of colonel was his by right. He died in 1890, leaving one son. William Waldor, now in London. William Astor died in 1892, leaving one son, the present John Jacob, and two daughters, one of who is Mrs Coleman Drayton, whose husband is suing for divorce."
All this makes up the most conspicuous chapter of American aristocracy extant But what has it all availed? It has not, it cannot, establish a family as families are established in the monarchial countries Lacking the law of Promogeniture, and of heriditary titles, the building of family that will endure for centuries is an impossibility In short, the American aristocracy is in the very nature of things ephemeral. One contemplates in the Astors the most preserving and practical efforts to create a family, sustained by wealth that might pay the ransom of a king. They have led the social world of the United States. Yet already there are signs of decay. Scandals of the most distressing sort have broken up the family harmony Quarrels that would have furnished an appropriate plot for a comic opera have made the family ridiculous And the family lives and thrives off that basic thing in wealth, "rent" -- that vast factor in the accumulation of private wealth which a small group of men in every county are regarding with eyes of fateful curiosity
W. W YAWNED
They have not been a particularly clever race of people, with the exception of William Waldorf Astor, who, perhaps, more than any one of his countrymen, has been emphatic in his lack of patriotism Mr Astor had no treasonable intentions in leaving America But he practically denied that it was a fit place to live in He was bored here He had the best that this country could offer in the way of luxury, society and prominence. And he yawned He even made other people yawn, by writing a book. Perhaps he hoped that the pleasant pit-a-pit of applause might arouse him to a new interest in life But it did not. He confessed himself sated with Americans by leaving the country and going where there were more worlds to conquer. That he was not conquered is not his fault It may be that he has failed because his intentions were too obvious He was almost brutal in his attacks upon British aristocracy, and it is not surprising that his assault was resented.
There is a certain consolation in the fact that the Astor dynasty is, philosophically speaking a failure It shows that the great principles of our constitution will succeed in keeping this country democratic, even in spite of itself Whatever the inequalities of wealth and opportunity, this still remains the land where hereditary nobility is unattainable It still remains the country of individual achievement. For it is impossible to transmit a patent to fame, popularity or esteem. Money alone can be transmitted And that, eve, will not make or sustain an aristocracy It can only create a tawdry and evanescent plutocracy. ELIA. W. PEATTIE.
IDEAL AND REAL.
He was a reader of Shakespear, And longing a pout to be, Sho won a student at college, In quest of an M. D. degree. They stood in the pale, silent moonlight, He holding her soft, dimpled hand, A happier lover than he was Sure never lived in the land For she had just told him, the darling. A secret he'd long sighed to know: Ah, lady youll guess what the thing was. That is, if you e'er had a beau "My loved one, he murmured in rapture, With a fine touch of dramatic art, "Are you sure that those words you have uttered COme straight from your warm, tender heart?" She answered -- her full tones were sweeter Than tones from ten nightingales' tongues - "Ha, ha! From my heart? How absurd, dear! The voice always comes from the lungs."
--Pharmaceutical Hrs.
230
THE LATEST PLAY OF IBSEN
"Little Eyofl," in Which He Lays Bare the Human Heart.
A Deep and Delicate Study in Human Emotions -- The Main Incidents in the Play.
The Great Norwegian May Have Taken A Lesson From Maeterlinck, the Belgian Dramatist.
Henrik Ibsen's last play is "Little Eyolf," and it is prettily published by Stone and Kimball, Chicago, in Green Tree Library.
It is a psychological presentation of an unhappy marriage. The woman, Mrs. Allmers, loves her husband passionately. He loves her quietly, incidentally and complaisantly. She is beautiful and rich. He has married her because of these things, and because her beloved sister had suffered with him the inconveniences and chagrins of poverty. That sister had a home with him, and spent most of her time caring for Eyolf, the maimed son of Allmers. This little Eyolf was injured by falling from the table when he was a little babe. Allmer's sister Asta had gathered him up in her arms, and carried him, broken and harmed past remedy to the young parents, where they sat oblivious of the world wrapped in each other's smiles.
"The law of change" had been doing its fatal work. Allmers was absorbed on a book he was writing on "Human Responsibility." Mrs. Allmers, idle, beautiful, neglected, wandered about her gardens, or down by the melancholy fiord, or about her magnificent rooms and brooded on love. She was thrilled with the consciousness of her own witchery. She knew that any man book he was writing. She would, perhaps, have destroyed it if that would have availed to bring him closer to her.
Allmers, meantime, brooded upon the words he was writing in this commentary of human responsibility. He left home and went up among the mountains. He determined to return, sacrifice his book, which he had expected to be his life work, and devote himself to his unfortunate little son -- who was dreaming of being a soldier, and who could never, at best, be anything more than a scholar.
He comes back, finds his little son cricked out in a tiny soldier's uniform, and is moved at the pathos of the contrast between the possibilities and the poor lad's aspirations. He is tender with his sister, and kindly with his wife, and in this mood confides to them his change of plan. His wife, who has had one triumphant moment when she hears him declare that he is about to relinquish the writing of his book is seized with a new torment of jealous when she learns that he intends to devote his life to her strange little child -- the child she has never been able to get close to her heart.
In the midst of this scene on fo those peculiar characters by which Ibsen and Maeterlinck imbue their tales with an awesome fatality -- a presage of inevitable disaster -- enters. This is the "rat-wife," who has the power to lure the rats from any house, or island, or town by playing upon her pipe. With her she carried an ugly flat-nosed dog which possesses like herself a hypnotic power over vermin of any sort. There is a suggestion of the pied pier in all this, of course, and yet more suggestion of the old pagan tales of the obedience of animals to luring music. Perhaps that is more than a hint of a fact at the bottom of it. Anyway, the old rat-wife terrifies them all with her mystery and her threats. The rat-wife looks at her dog, and says, nodding at Allmers:
"Moseman and I -- we two do it together. And it goes so smoothly -- for all you can see, at any rate. I just slip a string through his collar, and then I lead him three times around the house, and play on my Pan's pipes. When they hear that, they've got to come up from the cellars, and down from the garrets, and out of their holes, all the blessed little creatures!"
Little Eyolf asks: "And does he bite them to death?"
"Oh, not at all," she responds. "No, we go down to the boat, he and I do -- and then they follow after us, both the little and the big ratkins. Then we push out from land, and I scull with one oar, and play on my Pan's pipes. And Moseman, he swims behind. (With glittering eyes) And [?], creepers and crawlers, they follow and follow us out into the deep, deep waters. Ay, for they have to!"
They try to get rid of the rat witch -- who says she once lured her own lover into the black water. She goes, half-chagrined, but inscrutable, pausing to say [?]. Allmers: "If your ladyship should find that there's anything that keeps nibbling, and gnawing, and creeping, and crawling, then just see and get hold of me and Moseman."
The husband and wife are left alone. She chafes and fumes under his inattention. At length she breaks into a jealous woman's railing against her own child, who has evil eyes, she says.
And a few minutes later the little boy, who has gone to play on the beach, having followed the old rat-wife, is drowned. His crutch is found floating on the water.
Then follows a study in remorse. It is refined in that terrible and haunting way in which Ibsed can refine an emotion till it seems like the distillment of some tortured human heart. It has an air of actuality which refuses to be discountenanced. The reproaches of the husband and wife are as foolish, as angry and as unjust as one can imagine their early vows of love were excessive, voluptuous and unholy. The child which has been given them as the accident of nature does not seem to them to be the palpable form of their love -- as it would had their natures or their relations been different. He accuses her of having lured him to her arms, and made them both forget the little one on the day it was injured. She is haunted with those large eyes staring at her from under the green water, where, the peasant boys say, he floated slowly after the boat of the rat-wife. "Are they evil eyes?" Allmers horis at her, in cruel reminder of her own angry remark, "are they a child's evil eyes?"
His love for her seems dead. She is maddened with remorse. They cannot bear to be together. Meantime, the sister Asta, has discovered that she is not the sister of Almmers, as both of them had always supposed. This causes her to reject the importunities of a very frank, and charming young civil engineer, who seems the one perfectly healthy and happy mortal in the play. For Asta feels that her happiness during the years she and Allmers struggled together in poverty arose from other reasons that that of their supposed relationship. Meanwhile, the hatred between husband and wife seems to hourly increase. her tumult wears itself away -- as even, the most violent storms must do -- and she grows calmer, and sets about laying out a plan of life for herself. She has lost her child, and in losing him has lost her husband. She could not live with such a vacuity as that in her heart. She decides to look after the wretched little children who have swarmed over her estate -- the children of her tenants. Her husband, who has confessed his life to be empty, and who has spent his time since the event of the tragedy looking in melancholy mad infatuation at the waters of the fiord, comes at length to attain a sort of respect for her resolve. Though he has declared that they could never live together again, he concludes to make the effort. She accepts this decision with humility -- too worn with suffering to rejoice when joy comes. And, indeed, it is but the faint shadow of joy. In short, after several years of wedded life, these two people enter for the first time upon something which may develop into a marriage in the sacred sense of the word.
The whole play seems to be alive with unseen forces. It is not the personages in the play any more than their Destiny that holds one.
It has often been said that Maeterninck felt Ibsen's influence, but certainly in "Little Eyolf" the influence of the great Flanand is felt by Ibsen.
The trick of turning the sensitive human heart as bare as the scalpe; lays bare the brain is Isben's own, however. He probes deeper than any man, living or dead, into the mysteries of marriage, which, by common consent, men and women conceal by a conventional smile. He knows that nothing but love can bring serenity, and is too much of a student of human nature to suppose that serenity is frequently an incident of married life among highly cultivated and complex creatures. To depict the various sorts of miseries is his sorry work. He builds no ideals -- Isben. He presents only what seems to him to be the conditions. Probably he would say that he is not responsible for them. He is master and when his men and women suffer other men and women raust needs suffer in sympathy. But his books are sorrowful, and remind one that the century is very old and weary.
He does not, however, remind one that the sky is as young today as it was yesterday, or that the springs of a thousand years from now will bring out grasses as delicately fringed as those that grew on the mountain paths when Petrarch was a lover. For Ibsen the sky is gray and the fiord is sighing. He stands among his fellows a giant, swathed in dun, draperies -- a master with a mysterious brow -- a man with no message, but with an eloquently weary plaint. ELIA W. PEATTIE.
FALSE STORY CAUSED DEATH
Little Ednee Brower Dies of a Broken Heart.
Hot Springs, Ark., Feb. 9. -- Ednee Brower, the 12-year-old invalid who was known either personally or through correspondence to people all over the United States, died hard. For seven years she had been unable to walk or move any part of her body except her hands and head, on account of injures to her spine, received by a fall when was only 5 years old. She was a bright child and could read and write. For a year or more past she has been collecting canceled postage stamps, and friends from all over the United States were sending them to her. In this way she supported herself by selling stamps to dealers. During the past year she collected 1,000,000 stamps in this way, for which she received $100. She had to lie on her stomach all the time, and in that uncomfortable position she could work day after day, writing letters and counting stamps that had been sent to her, but she was always bright and cheerful.
A few days ago the mails brought her a copy of the Washington Post, which contained a notice that she was a fraud, that she was not an invalid. This was an error, which probably grew out of the fact that a Miss Edna Brown of Illinois, is also collecting stamps in a similar way for the support of an invalid sister. This notice had the effect of breaking Ednee Brower's heart, for she became ill and died this morning. She talked of the publication all the while and said she would collect no more stamps, for she would rather starve than be pronounced a fraud. A few moments before she died and opened her eyes and asked the physician Dr. W. H. Barry, how long it would be before she could go to heaven, then she closed her eyes as though she had only fallen asleep.
FIRST TRAIN ARRIVES.
Pittsburg Has Railway Service After a Long Delay.
Pittsburg, Pa., Feb. 8. --The first through train from the east is more than twenty-four hours arrived at 9 o'clock this morning. This tells the condition of traffic as a result of the severe weather. The train referred to was No. 7, which carries the fast mail, due here yesterday at 8:30 a. m. When others, due in the interim, will arrive, is entirely a matter of conjecture. The trains from off the Pennsylvania company's lines west of Pittsburg are arriving from two to five hours late. General Manager Woods has ordered a temporary suspension of freight movement.
FIRED TWO SHOTS:
Holland Tries to Assassinate Banker Hellman of San Francisco.
San Francisco, Cal., Feb. 9. -- An attempt was made at 9:15 o'clock this morning to kill F. W. Hellman, president of the Navada bank and one of the leading financiers of this city.
A man named Holland, said to be a foreigner, fired two shots at the banker near his residence on California street and then shot himself. He is mortally wounded. The shots fired at Mr. Hellman went wide of the mark.
The police say the attempted assassination was the result of the bank's refusal to cash a check signed by Holland, believing it to be a forgery.
SCORCH AT SCOTIA. Special Dispatch to the World-Herald.
Scotia, Neb., Feb. 9 -- This quiet little village was suddenly surprised by an alarm of fire about 9 p. m. last night. The general merchandise and grocery store of B. Wilcox was found to be on fire. It is a frame building, with two frame buildings on either side. No metropolitan fire company is located here, and the old-time bucket brigade was called. The citizens did faithful work and finally extinguished the flamed which partly damaged the building. The stock was fully insured.
KICKED TO DEATH. Special Dispatch to the World-Herald.
Morse Bluffs, Neb., Feb. 9. -- Mary Dufek, daughter of Joseph Dufek, living near Linwood, was kicked to death by a horse yesterday afternoon.
POWDER INJURES TWO.
Alliance, O., Feb. 9. -- Two kegs and a half of powder exploded in a room of the Houston Coal company's mine at Palmyra last night. David Lloyd and David Linse were fatally injured.
POLICE PARAGRAPHS.
George McCormack is in jail for being drunk and abusing his family.
A. C. Thompson, the insane man who was sent to the county hospital, has been taken to his home at Jacksonville by a brother who arrived here Friday.
A dispatch has been received from Tekamah, Neb., requesting the police to "send Miss Katie Boyce, who is working at 2016 South Thirteenth street, home immediately."
Charles Felix is wanted for the larceny of 100 pounds of millet from Nicholas Nelson. The amount alleged to have been stolen is said to be two tons, but there is no evidence of more than the amount specified in the complaint taken by Felix.