In every county the court shall cause to be set up a pillory, a pair of stocks, and a whipping-post near the courthouse, and a ducking stool; and the court not causing the said pillory, whipping-post, stocks, and ducking-stool to be erected, shall be fined five thousand pounds of tobacco to the use of the public.
In every county the court shall cause to be set up a pillory, a pair of stocks, and a whipping-post near the courthouse, and a ducking stool; and the court not causing the said pillory, whipping-post, stocks, and ducking-stool to be erected, shall be fined five thousand pounds of tobacco to the use of the public.
Among commercial restrictions wefind an enactment prohibiting the planting of tobacco after July 10, which was done for "the improvement of our only commodity, tobacco, which can no ways be effected but by lessening the quantity and amending the quality."
Another object that the government had in view was to compel the people to become silk-growers against their will. "Be it therefore enacted," says the Legislature, "that every proprietor of land within the colony of Virginia shall, for every hundred acres of land holden in fee, plant upon the said land ten mulberry-trees at twelve feet distance from each other, and secure them by weeding and a sufficient fence from cattle and horses."
Tobacco fines, as usual, were enacted in case the planting and weeding were not duly performed according to the statute; and further:
There shall be allowed in the public levy to any one for every pound of wound silk he shall make, fifty pounds of tobacco, to be raised in the public levy, and paid in the county or counties where they dwell that make it.
There shall be allowed in the public levy to any one for every pound of wound silk he shall make, fifty pounds of tobacco, to be raised in the public levy, and paid in the county or counties where they dwell that make it.
This act was passed in 1662, and probably continued in force for a long time; but Virginia did not therefore become a silk-growing country, nor has it yet, though many parts are well adapted to raise this commodity. People, we presume, have hitherto found other things more profitable.
The following enactment is a mixture of the barbarous and the ludicrous:
Whereas many babbling women slander and scandalize their neighbors, for which their poor husbands are often involved in chargeable and vexatious suits, and cast in great damages; be it therefore enacted, That in actions of slander, occasioned by the wife, after judgment passed for the damages, the woman shall be punished by ducking; and if the slander be so enormous as to be adjudged at greater damages than five hundred pounds of tobacco, then the woman to suffer ducking for each five hundred pounds of tobacco adjudged against the husband, if he refuses to pay the tobacco.
Whereas many babbling women slander and scandalize their neighbors, for which their poor husbands are often involved in chargeable and vexatious suits, and cast in great damages; be it therefore enacted, That in actions of slander, occasioned by the wife, after judgment passed for the damages, the woman shall be punished by ducking; and if the slander be so enormous as to be adjudged at greater damages than five hundred pounds of tobacco, then the woman to suffer ducking for each five hundred pounds of tobacco adjudged against the husband, if he refuses to pay the tobacco.
Adversity Has So Many Pleasant Uses That Most of the World's Inhabitants Appear to beUnable to Wait Until It Comes to Them.
A very large proportion of the inhabitants of earth appear to take no stock in that cheerful assurance, given in the Book of Job, that "Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward." They believe that man cannot have trouble unless he looks for it.
"Seek and ye shall find" is their motto, and they seek trouble because they are philosophers. Apparently Shakespeare was of their ilk, for he said:
Sweet are the uses of adversity,Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;And this our life, exempt from public haunt,Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
Sweet are the uses of adversity,Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;And this our life, exempt from public haunt,Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
Here are some advantages of adversity as pointed out byPunch:
You wear out your clothes.You are not troubled with visitors.You are exonerated from making calls.Bores do not bore you.Tax-gatherers hurry past your door.Itinerant bands do not play opposite your windows.You avoid the nuisance of serving on juries.No one thinks of presenting you with a testimonial.No tradesman irritates by asking, "Is there any other article you wish to-day, sir?"Impostors know it is no use to bleed you.You practise temperance.You swallow infinitely less poison than others.Flatterers do not shoot their rubbish into your ears.You are saved many a debt, many a deception, many a headache.And lastly, if you have a true friend in the world, you are sure, in a very short space of time, to know it.
You wear out your clothes.
You are not troubled with visitors.
You are exonerated from making calls.
Bores do not bore you.
Tax-gatherers hurry past your door.
Itinerant bands do not play opposite your windows.
You avoid the nuisance of serving on juries.
No one thinks of presenting you with a testimonial.
No tradesman irritates by asking, "Is there any other article you wish to-day, sir?"
Impostors know it is no use to bleed you.
You practise temperance.
You swallow infinitely less poison than others.
Flatterers do not shoot their rubbish into your ears.
You are saved many a debt, many a deception, many a headache.
And lastly, if you have a true friend in the world, you are sure, in a very short space of time, to know it.
ByTHEODORE O'HARA.
Theodore O'Hara (1820-1867) has been said to have produced the one perfect and universal martial elegy that the world has known. "The Bivouac of the Dead" has been translated into almost every European language, and since it was written, more than half a century ago, it has been almost as popular in England as in the United States.
On the field on which was fought one of the most stubbornly contested battles of the Crimean War is a large monument which bears the last four lines of the first verse of O'Hara's poem, and over the gateway of the National Cemetery at Arlington the whole first stanza is inscribed, while there, as at Antietam and other national cemeteries, the entire poem is produced, stanza by stanza, on slabs along the driveways.
O'Hara was a native of Kentucky, and served in the army during the war with Mexico. He wrote "The Bivouac of the Dead" on the occasion of the removal of the bodies of Kentucky soldiers from the field of the battle of Buena Vista to their native State.
At the outbreak of the Civil War O'Hara entered the Confederate army as a colonel. He died in Alabama in 1867, and his body was removed to Kentucky and laid beside those of the soldiers he had commemorated.
The muffled drum's sad roll has beatThe soldier's last tattoo!No more on life's parade shall meetThat brave and fallen few.On fame's eternal camping groundTheir silent tents are spread,And glory guards, with solemn round,The bivouac of the dead.No rumor of the foe's advanceNow swells upon the wind;No troubled thought at midnight hauntsOf loved ones left behind;No vision of the morrow's strifeThe warrior's dream alarms;No braying horn nor screaming fifeAt dawn shall call to arms.Their shivered swords are red with rust,Their plumed heads are bowed,Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,Is now their martial shroud,And plenteous funeral tears have washedThe red stains from each brow,And the proud forms, by battle gashed,Are free from anguish now.The neighing troop, the flashing blade,The bugle's stirring blast,The charge, the dreadful cannonade,The din and shout are passed;Nor war's wild note nor glory's pealShall thrill with fierce delightThose breasts that never more may feelThe rapture of the fight.Like the fierce northern hurricaneThat sweeps this great plateau,Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,Came down the serried foe,Who heard the thunder of the frayBreak o'er the field beneath,Knew well the watchword of that dayWas "Victory or death!"Full many a norther's breath has sweptO'er Angostura's plain,And long the pitying sky has weptAbove the moldering slain.The raven's scream or eagle's flightOr shepherd's pensive layAlone now wakes each sullen heightThat frowned o'er that dread fray.Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,Ye must not slumber there,Where stranger steps and tongues resoundAlong the heedless air;Your own proud land's heroic soilShall be your fitter grave;She claims from war its richest spoil,The ashes of her brave.So 'neath their parent turf they rest,Far from the gory field,Borne to a Spartan mother's breastOn many a bloody shield;The sunshine of their native skySmiles sadly on them here,And kindred eyes and hearts watch byThe hero's sepulcher.Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead!Dear as the blood ye gave,No impious footsteps here shall treadThe herbage of your grave.Nor shall your glory be forgotWhile fame her record keepsOr honor points the hallowed spotWhere valor proudly sleeps.Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stoneIn deathless songs shall tell,When many a vanished age hath flown,The story how ye fell;Nor wreck nor change nor winter's flightNor Time's remorseless doomCan dim one ray of holy lightThat gilds your glorious tomb.
The muffled drum's sad roll has beatThe soldier's last tattoo!No more on life's parade shall meetThat brave and fallen few.On fame's eternal camping groundTheir silent tents are spread,And glory guards, with solemn round,The bivouac of the dead.
No rumor of the foe's advanceNow swells upon the wind;No troubled thought at midnight hauntsOf loved ones left behind;No vision of the morrow's strifeThe warrior's dream alarms;No braying horn nor screaming fifeAt dawn shall call to arms.
Their shivered swords are red with rust,Their plumed heads are bowed,Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,Is now their martial shroud,And plenteous funeral tears have washedThe red stains from each brow,And the proud forms, by battle gashed,Are free from anguish now.
The neighing troop, the flashing blade,The bugle's stirring blast,The charge, the dreadful cannonade,The din and shout are passed;Nor war's wild note nor glory's pealShall thrill with fierce delightThose breasts that never more may feelThe rapture of the fight.
Like the fierce northern hurricaneThat sweeps this great plateau,Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,Came down the serried foe,Who heard the thunder of the frayBreak o'er the field beneath,Knew well the watchword of that dayWas "Victory or death!"
Full many a norther's breath has sweptO'er Angostura's plain,And long the pitying sky has weptAbove the moldering slain.The raven's scream or eagle's flightOr shepherd's pensive layAlone now wakes each sullen heightThat frowned o'er that dread fray.
Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,Ye must not slumber there,Where stranger steps and tongues resoundAlong the heedless air;Your own proud land's heroic soilShall be your fitter grave;She claims from war its richest spoil,The ashes of her brave.
So 'neath their parent turf they rest,Far from the gory field,Borne to a Spartan mother's breastOn many a bloody shield;The sunshine of their native skySmiles sadly on them here,And kindred eyes and hearts watch byThe hero's sepulcher.
Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead!Dear as the blood ye gave,No impious footsteps here shall treadThe herbage of your grave.Nor shall your glory be forgotWhile fame her record keepsOr honor points the hallowed spotWhere valor proudly sleeps.
Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stoneIn deathless songs shall tell,When many a vanished age hath flown,The story how ye fell;Nor wreck nor change nor winter's flightNor Time's remorseless doomCan dim one ray of holy lightThat gilds your glorious tomb.
The Great Events in the History of the Last One Hundred Years, Assembledso as to Present a Nutshell Record.
[Continued from page 163.]
A congress of the European powers, held at Laibach, in Austria, determined to suppress the liberal movement in Italy and to restore absolute rule in Naples. King Ferdinand of Naples agreed, though he had recently sworn to uphold the constitution. Austrian armies invaded Piedmont and Naples, speedily crushed the revolutionary movement, and the leaders of the popular party were shot or imprisoned.
Both in the Old World and in the New the year was one of political unrest. Brazil rebelled against Portuguese rule, and Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador against Spanish domination. Greece and the Christian tribesmen of the Balkans rose against Turkey. In retaliation, Greeks in Constantinople were strangled; Greek settlements on the Bosporus were wiped out; and the Patriarch of Constantinople, head of the Greek Church, was hanged by the Turks. Russia, on the point of declaring war against Turkey, was restrained by England and Metternich. Both Greeks and Turks carried on a war of indiscriminate slaughter.
Napoleon died at St. Helena, May 5, after nearly six years of captivity. A curious feature of his will was his bequest of ten thousand francs to Cantillon, who had attempted to assassinate Wellington. Queen Caroline of England, wife of George IV, died; serious riots at her funeral. John Keats, English poet, died.
In the United States, James Monroe began his second term as President. Missouri was admitted to the Union. Arrangements were made to open the territory of Liberia, on the west coast of Africa, as a colony for freedmen. Amherst College and the Massachusetts General Hospital were founded.
POPULATION—Washington, D.C., 13,247; New York (including the boroughs now forming Greater New York), 152,056; New York (Manhattan), 123,706; London (Metropolitan District), 1,225,694; London (old city), 125,434; United States (1820), 9,633,822; Great Britain and Ireland (1821), 20,893,584.
RULERS—United States, James Monroe; Great Britain, George IV; France, Louis XVIII; Spain, Ferdinand VII; Prussia, Frederick William III; Russia, Alexander I; Austria, Francis I; Pope Pius VII.
The Turks slaughtered some twenty-five thousand Greeks on the island of Scio (Chios), and sold the surviving women and children into slavery. Constantine Kanaris, unaided, burned the flag-ship of the Turkish fleet. A Turkish army under Dramalis invaded the Grecian mainland, and reached Corinth, but gained no decisive success. Other nations, in response to popular sympathy for the Greeks, intervened to put an end to the war. Spain disturbed by civil war; King Ferdinand VII imprisoned in his own palace. Spanish efforts to reconquer the revolted colonies in South America ended disastrously in the battle of Ayacucho, in which General Sucre, a lieutenant of the great liberator Bolivar, decisively defeated the Spaniards. Brazil became independent of Portugal by a peaceful revolution, which set Dom Pedro, son of the Portuguese king, upon the Brazilian throne with the title of emperor. General Iturbide proclaimed himself Emperor of Mexico.
Percussion-caps invented. Cabs introduced in London, and their use immediately spread. Aleppo, Syria, destroyed by an earthquake; twenty thousand people killed. Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet; Sir William Herschel, astronomer; and Antonio Canova, Italian sculptor, died. Viscount Castlereagh, British statesman, committed suicide.
RULERS—The same as in the previous year.
Louis XVIII of France decided to invade Spain in order to maintain Bourbon rule, whichwas threatened by the Spanish liberal movement; the Cortes withdrew to Cadiz, which was besieged and captured by the French. Ferdinand VII, being restored to absolute power, dissolved the Cortes, despite all persuasion annulled the constitution, and implacably punished by death, exile, or imprisonment all who had sided against him. The struggle between the Greeks and the Turks continued with much desperate fighting, but no decisive result. A notable episode of the war was the gallant defense of Missolonghi by Markos Bozzaris. Central America declared itself free from Spanish rule.
In the United States, 1823 is historically memorable as the year in which President Monroe, in his annual message to Congress, enunciated the so-called Monroe Doctrine, which has since been the keynote of American foreign policy. First steam printing-press operated in New York; an earlier attempt made by the LondonTimeswas only partially successful. Gaslight introduced in New York. The first boat passed through the Erie Canal from Rochester to New York.
Richard Jenner, discoverer of vaccination, and David Ricardo, political economist, died.
RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that Pope Pius VII died, August 20, and was succeeded by Cardinai della Genga, who assumed the name of Leo XII.
An Egyptian army, aiding the Sultan of Turkey—to whom Egypt was, and nominally still is, a vassal state—landed in Crete, and nearly exterminated the Greek population. It also captured the island of Kossos, slaughtering most of the inhabitants, but on proceeding to attack Samos it was repulsed and driven back to Crete. The Turks also captured Psara and butchered or enslaved the whole population. The new independent states of South America—Venezuela, New Granada (Colombia), Chile, Peru, and Buenos Ayres (Argentina)—were formally recognized by the United States government. In Mexico, the self-styled Emperor Iturbide was shot, and Santa Anna established a republican government. The first Burmese War was precipitated by Bundula, who invaded Bengal. He was repelled, and the British captured Rangoon.
Lafayette revisited the United States and received a memorable welcome. Robert Owen, the English Fourierist, founded a colony at New Harmony, Indiana. First society for the prevention of cruelty to animals founded in England. Portland cement invented by Joseph Aspden, of Leeds, England. Lord Byron, English poet, died at Missolonghi, Greece, where he was serving as a volunteer in the cause of Grecian liberty.
RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that Louis XVIII of France died, and was succeeded by his brother, Charles X.
The Turks reduced much of the Grecian territory to a desert, and slaughtered thousands of its inhabitants, the patriot forces having been defeated and scattered. General European resentment was aroused by the inhuman savagery of the Turks. The British forces decisively defeated the Burmese, and added greatly to British territory on the eastern frontier of India.
The first public steam railroad was opened in England, between Stockton and Darlington, George Stephenson himself driving the engine. It was the first thorough and practical test of the locomotive, though in 1813 William Hedley had partially succeeded at the Wyland colliery, and in 1814 Stephenson built an engine that made six miles an hour, but it proved defective. After the success of the new road was undeniable, it was difficult to persuade Parliament to sanction it.
In the United States, Congress decided the disputed Presidential election in favor of John Quincy Adams, John Calhoun becoming Vice-President. John Randolph and Henry Clay fought a resultless duel. Reorganization of United States political parties, the Whigs lining up as supporters of President Adams, with the Democrats, whose main strength lay in the South, as their opponents.
The first boat came through the entire length of the Erie Canal, from Buffalo to New York. Bunker Hill monument begun; Lafayette present; Webster the orator of the day. Congress granted Lafayette two hundred thousand dollars and a township site.
Mutiny of Russian troops at the coronation of Nicholas I put down after much bloodshed. First steam voyage from England to India, by the Cape of Good Hope route, eighty-five days out. Augustine Fresnel, French scientist; Jacques Louis David, French historical painter; and Jean Paul Richter, German author, died.
RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that Nicholas I succeededAlexander I as Czar of Russia, and John Quincy Adams succeeded James Monroe as President of the United States.
Insurrection in Portugal against the infant queen, Maria da Gloria. Insurgents defeated and fled to Spain; aid sent to Portugal by England. The Russian Czar Nicholas began his reign by hanging or exiling to Siberia those who stood for a liberal government and for popular education. The Russians pushed forward in the direction of Persia, defeating the Persian troops and annexing disputed territory. Nicholas demanded from Turkey the autonomy of Servia, Moldavia, and Wallachia; Turkey, still occupied with its Grecian troubles, yielded. In Greece, the Turks captured Missolonghi and Athens, though the Acropolis of the latter city still held out.
Financial and industrial depression prevailed in England; machine-smashing continued; friction matches perfected by John Walker; lime-light discovered by Thomas Drummond; English state lotteries prohibited.
On July 4, while the people of the United States were celebrating the semi-centennial of the Declaration of Independence, two signers of that immortal document, both ex-Presidents, died—Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. A violent anti-Masonic movement further disturbed the American political situation. Bellevue Hospital founded in New York.
Froebel published "The Education of Man." Famous men dying in 1826 were Lindley Murray, grammarian; John Flaxman, sculptor; Reginald Heber, Bishop of Calcutta and hymn-writer; and Prince Rostopchin, by whose orders Moscow was burned in 1812.
RULERS—The same as in the previous year.
The revolt in Portugal finally suppressed, with the assistance of a British army corps. The Acropolis at Athens captured by the Turks. Many foreign volunteers joined the Greek forces, and England, Russia, and France demanded that Turkey should agree to an armistice. As the Turks refused, and continued their atrocities upon the helpless Greeks, Admiral Codrington, commanding twenty-nine English, Russian, and French vessels, attacked the Turkish and Egyptian fleets at Navarino—consisting of seventy warships, forty transports, and four fire-ships—and utterly destroyed them. The Sultan, however, remained obdurate, refusing all demands, and insisting on an indemnity for his ships.
Popular discontent and anti-clerical riots in France; Charles X disbanded the National Guard, and made ineffectual attempts to gag the press.
Joseph Smith, at Palmyra, New York, began to have visions that later developed into Mormonism. Woehler, German chemist, discovered the metal aluminum; Ohm made important discoveries concerning electric currents. Famous men dying in this year were George Canning, English statesman; Laplace, French astronomer; Ludwig van Beethoven, German musician; William Blake, English poet and artist; and Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist.
RULERS—The same as in the previous year.
Russia concluded peace with Persia, exacting an indemnity of twenty million rubles and annexing two provinces. She now moved against Turkey, where the Sultan Mahmoud had incited his people to a holy war. The Russians won some early successes, but were hampered by poor commissariat and transportation service, and could not pass the Turkish fortresses at Silistria, Varna, and Shumla. Meanwhile a French force landed in Greece; the Morea was evacuated by the Turks, and Greece became independent, with Count Joannes Capo d'Istria, a Greek who had been foreign minister at St. Petersburg, as president.
In the United States, Congress passed a bill establishing a protective tariff. The North, formerly agricultural and in favor of free trade, had turned to manufacturing, and, led by Webster, strenuously upheld protection against the Southern leaders, once its advocates, now its enemies. States rights discussions grew stronger. The first American steam railroad constructed at Baltimore. Webster's Dictionary published.
Internal wars in Latin America. The Emperor of China sought to restrain the English from carrying on the opium trade. Daniel O'Connell elected to Parliament, but not permitted to sit, being a Roman Catholic. As a result, however, a general sentiment in favor of Catholic emancipation developed in England. British troops withdrawn from Portugal. Dom Miguel proclaimed King of Portugal; absolutism supreme.
Famous people dying in 1828 were Franz Schubert, Viennese musician; Lady Caroline Lamb, English author; Dugald Stewart, Scottish philosopher; and Thomas Bewick, engraver.
RULERS—The same as in the previous year.
In the Balkans, the Russian forces renewed the campaign against Turkey, severely defeated the Turks at Kulevtcha, and captured Silistria and Adrianople. Other European powers demanded peace, and on April 14 a treaty was signed giving Russia a protectorate over the newly liberated Danubian principalities, Turkey surrendering all fortified points on the left bank of the Danube.
In the United States, President Jackson began his term by declaring that "to the victors belong the spoils," and instantly removing one hundred and sixty-seven appointees made by John Quincy Adams. Adams absented himself from the inaugural ceremonies. Georgia and South Carolina, in the course of their opposition to the tariff, maintained the right of the States to nullify acts of Congress. Jackson involved in quarrels with his Cabinet. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opened.
The popular opposition to King Charles of France increased in intensity. The Catholic Emancipation Act passed by the British Parliament. Capital punishment for burglary abolished in England. The burning alive of widows forbidden in India. Sir Charles Gurney invented a steam-driven omnibus, the forerunner of the automobile. Sir John Ross, the British explorer, made the first Arctic voyage in a steamship. Jean Baptiste de Lamarck, French scientist; Karl von Schlegel, German scholar; and Thomas Young and Sir Humphry Davy, English scientists, died.
RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that Andrew Jackson became President of the United States, and Pope Leo XII died, February 10. Cardinal Castiglione, his successor, took the name of Pius VIII.
France seized Algiers, despite English protests, thus laying the foundation of her vast colonial empire in Africa. The liberals gained a majority in the French chamber, and on an appeal to the people the government was overwhelmingly defeated. On July 24 Charles X dissolved the legislature and made Marshal Marmont commandant of Paris. Next day barricades were thrown up in the streets, merchants, working men, students, and soldiers joining in opposition to the government. Paris was declared in a state of siege, but the Louvre and the Tuileries were captured by the revolutionists. After vainly endeavoring to quiet the country by concessions, Charles abdicated and fled to England. His cousin, Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, son of the so-called Philippe Egalité, was crowned king.
Rebellion began in Brussels, and Holland and Belgium, which had been united as one state since the downfall of Napoleon, formed separate governments. Uprising in Spain against Ferdinand VII, because he had abolished the Salic law, being without male issue and wishing his wife to succeed him. Poland also rose against Russian domination, and set up a provisional government. The Sultan of Turkey formally recognized the independence of Greece.
In the United States Congress, nullification continued to be the absorbing topic; Webster, speaking on it, made his famous oration in reply to Hayne, of South Carolina (January 26, 27). Mormon Church organized at Manchester, New York. First American-built locomotive operated at Baltimore. A portion of Texas was claimed as United States territory by settlers living on the Texan border; Congress refused to take action in the matter.
In England, the Duke of Wellington's ministry resigned, and was succeeded by Earl Grey's. In the British colony of Van Diemen's Land—since renamed Tasmania—the white inhabitants began a war of extermination upon the natives. A cordon was drawn across the island, but failed to accomplish the work. There was further political unrest in Germany; Duke Charles Frederick of Brunswick was expelled from his dominions by a popular uprising, and the people of Saxony forced their king, Antony, to promise them a constitution.
Barthélemy Thimonnier, French tailor, introduced a practical chain-stitch sewing-machine. Joseph Lister contributed greatly to the utility of the microscope. Simon Bolivar, liberator of South America, and Sir Thomas Lawrence, English painter, died.
RULERS—United States, Andrew Jackson; Great Britain, George IV, died June 26, succeeded by William IV; France, Charles X, deposed, succeeded by Louis Philippe; Spain, Ferdinand VII; Prussia, Frederick William III; Russia, Nicholas I; Austria, Francis I; Pope, Pius VIII, died March 31. The Papacy remained vacant until the following year.
Crumbs of Wit, Wisdom, and History That Have Been Dropped by Rural Scribes inWhose Hands Pens Are Mightier Than Swords.
A copy ofPunch'sAlmanac has been received at this office. It is England's leading exponent of humor. A member of this great journal's staff read it through carefully and studied every drawing. Then he went outside and kicked at a strange dog. The English brand of humor is sedate and stately. It is not intended to be laughed at. Laughter—that is, loud laughter—is excessively rude, don't you know.Punch'sAlmanac for 1906 is sixpen'orth of humor profundo. The man who would laugh atPunchwould go into hysterics at a funeral.Punch'snotion of humor is altogether too sublime for any place outside of an English drawing-room.—Bobcaygeon (Ontario) Independent.
Mrs. Herbert Taylor, who is a pleasant and estimable woman, and who can bake the finest cake ever made, having sent us some, and, therefore, making us a judge, and who has a family of nice, clean, polite children, and who plays the piano beautifully, and gives lessons to a few fortunate pupils in our little city, had a tooth pulled Friday.—Waitesburg (Missouri) Record.
An editor of a country paper thus humorously bids farewell to his readers: "The sheriff is waiting for us in the next room, so we have no opportunity to be pathetic. Major Nabbem says we are wanted and must go. Delinquent subscribers, you have much to answer for. Heaven may forgive you, but we never can."—Western Exchange.
A very pleasant surprise party was given at the 7T Ranch about a week ago, at which every one had a very enjoyable time. Jeff Parish took all honors for the best dancer. Another party was given at Plush last Friday night; a large crowd attended and had a good time, without any fights. One or two bluffs were stirred about, but no hard blows were cast.—Plush correspondence Lakeview Examiner.
Every symptom points to a tendency to spread of style in Tombstone. Among other instances in this direction, the boys bought a pair of beautiful barber-pole suspenders and presented them to the amiable dispenser who shoves the amber extract of cheerfulness over the mahogany of the Parlor Saloon. He promptly donned the innovation, but claimed that he felt like he had a fence-rail on each shoulder. Then, when they became overburdensome, he would unbutton them and permit them to dangle in front, but he finally got them down fine enough to go to church in. Several old-timers, conspicuously court attendants from the other end of the county, have fallen into the habit of wearing boiled shirts, and it looks as if sky-blue overalls might be discarded as a full-dress costume. Getting "powerful tony" in town nowadays.—Tombstone (Arizona) Prospector.
James Richardson, of Roger Mills County, tendered a mule to-day as a chattel to a Cheyenne money-lender in order to get funds with which to get a marriage license and pay the preacher. He had ridden the mule in—eighteen miles—and expected to walk back home in time for the wedding.—Guthrie (Oklahoma) Gazette..
Our fat friend, Henry Bowles, fell off his front porch Sunday, but was not injured. He landed on his stomach.—Leedsville (Colorado) Light.
Miss Mills, the school-teacher, asked for her salary last Friday night. Of course it created much surprise, but as it was her first offense, the board have decided to give her another trial.—Grafton (North Dakota) Record.
A Famous English Lyric of the Seventeenth Century.
ByROBERT HERRICK.
Robert Herrick (1591-1674) has long been known to fame as a writer of some of the most graceful lyrics in the English language. "Merrie England" has had many a laughter-loving parson who, peeping over his Book of Common Prayer, has been unable to resist the temptation to flirt with muses who have been rather more at home in ballrooms, studios, and old-world taverns than in the atmosphere of a country parsonage, but that black-garbed company never sent forth a singer with a lilt so free or a heart so light as Robert Herrick's.
Of Herrick's life comparatively little is known. He took his degree at Cambridge in 1620, and in 1629 Charles I made him vicar of Dean Prior, in Devonshire. From this position he was ousted about the beginning of the Cromwell regime. He went to London then and published "Hesperides," a book of verses. There, it is supposed, he lived a bohemian sort of existence until he was returned to his Dean Prior living by Charles II. He continued there until he died at the age of eighty-four.
This old-time Devonshire vicar was a great worshiper at the shrine of feminine beauty, and was a fond lover of his garden and ale-tankard as well. Like Omar Khayyám, he believed in making hay while the sun shone, and it is this spirit that pervades the exquisite verses which are published herewith.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,Old time is still a-flying;And this same flower that smiles to-day,To-morrow will be dying.The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,The higher he's a-getting.The sooner will his race be run,And nearer he's to setting.That age is best which is the first,When youth and blood are warmer:But being spent the worse and worstTimes still succeed the former.Then be not coy, but use your time,And while ye may go marry;For having lost but once your prime,You may forever tarry.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,Old time is still a-flying;And this same flower that smiles to-day,To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,The higher he's a-getting.The sooner will his race be run,And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,When youth and blood are warmer:But being spent the worse and worstTimes still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,And while ye may go marry;For having lost but once your prime,You may forever tarry.
ByMATTHEW WHITE,Jr
A Series of Papers That Will Be Continued from Month to Monthand Will Include All Players of Note.
On the Way to Rome to Prepare Himselffor Holy Orders He Was Strickenwith Stage Fever.
It is an interesting coincidence that Eben Plympton, now playing a bishop in "The Duel," should have been the unconscious means of keeping a young man out of the priesthood. It was away back in the early days of the Madison Square Theater, when "Esmeralda" was having its big run at that little playhouse and Plympton, as the hero, was a matinée favorite.
In the audience one day was a youth with big gray eyes, which were riveted in charmed attention on Plympton's every movement. The young man was with his father, and was on his way from his home in Washington to Rome, to attend there the school for acolytes, which was to pave the way for him to become a priest. His tomblike cell had already been selected for his occupancy, and, meantime, until the steamer sailed for Havre, the boy was going to the theater every night in New York with his father. He went in the afternoons, too, whenever there was a matinée.
"I wish the theaters were open in the morning," he said one day to his father, who began to wonder whether his son had not mistaken his vocation.
After this they went to see "Esmeralda," and then the sixteen-year-old youth issued his proclamation in these words:
"I have a vocation, but it is for the stage."
"Your vocation is the padded cell," replied his father tersely.
But they did not sail for Rome via Havre or any other way, but returned to Washington, and here Wilton Lackaye—for it was he—by way of compromise, began to study law. He gratified his theatrical cravings by joining an amateur dramatic club, of which he was speedily elected president, and which was known as the Lawrence Barrett Society.
Barrett himself was once induced to attend one of the performances, and he asked the young president if he wanted to go on the stage. This was like fire to gunpowder, and Mr. Barrett engaged him for utility work at twenty dollars a week.
The season ran for thirty weeks, so that he received for this period six hundred dollars. As he was obliged to buy his own costumes, and as they cost him seven hundred and twenty dollars in all, he discovered that the only way he could make money out of that company was to be discharged from it. However, his mother helped him. His father hadn't spoken to his son since he went on the stage.
After leaving the Barrett troupe, he went to New York to get another job. As an excuse to visit the agents' offices several times a day he used to write letters to himself in their care. As he was walking out with the letters, he would stop when near the door, and inquire over his shoulder, as though by an afterthought:
"Oh, by the way, have you anything for me to-day?"
He kept this up until the usual "Nothing," in the way of reply, was one day changed to:
"I think there is."
This "find" took him to a stock company in Dayton, Ohio, and after that he went from one company to another until he began to find solid footing at last with Fanny Davenport asClaudioin "Much Ado About Nothing." His first big success was in the title role of "Paul Kauvar" with Rose Coghlan.
His first part with Lawrence Barrett was one ofPaolo'sfriends in "Francesca da Rimini," done at the Star Theater, NewYork—now pulled down—in 1883. He was born in Virginia.
When he comes to play in "Les Misérables" this spring, and has so much to do with the priest in the story, I wonder if he will think many times of what might have been his career had he not gone to the theater so often while waiting for that ship to sail, back there in his 'teens!
Apropos of the production of "Les Misérables," Lackaye was asked some years ago if he had yet found a manager to bring it out for him.
"Bring it out?" he repeated. "I have yet to find one who can pronounce it."
Which, now, in the sequel, is an implied compliment for William A. Brady.
At one stage of his career, Lackaye's chief claim to distinction was his refusal, while a member of Daly's company, to accept a part to which Mr. Daly had assigned him. The part wasOliverin "As You Like It," given to him after he had made a hit asO'Donnell Donin "The Great Unknown."
It was the joking remark made at the time, that for theOliverMr. Daly offered him, Lackaye handed him aRolandin the shape of his resignation.
Author of "The Squaw Man" Has a Runof Ill-Luck to Thank for HisSuccess as a Playwright.
Edwin Milton Royle, author of "The Squaw Man," is another of that countless army brought up to the law and who sidetracked themselves to the stage. He spent his youth in a place that seems to breed actors so freely—Salt Lake City—where he attended the same Presbyterian school as Maude Adams. He is now on the sunny side of fifty, having graduated from Princeton in 1883.
Amateur theatricals at college are responsible for the lure that drew him to the professional footlights. After Princeton he went to continue his studies in Edinburgh, and there he took prominent part in a great performance of the students that had among its spectators some of the most prominent men in Great Britain.
On his return to America he set about studying law in New York, but he did not really settle down to it. The inclination toward the stage had by this time become too strong to be resisted. He began to make a tour of the manager's offices in search of an opening.
In this he had no better luck than usually falls to the lot of the unknown. Men in power along the Rialto did not know what he could do, and it was not to be expected that many of them would take the time to let him prove his abilities. At last, however, he secured, through Eugene W. Presbrey, an interview with the late A.M. Palmer, who gave him the small part of the boy in "Young Mrs. Winthrop," at the Madison Square Theater. From that he drifted to other small parts in the company of Edwin Booth, while the latter was at the Fifth Avenue Theater, and the next season he was with Booth and Barrett during their engagement at the Broadway.
"You can imagine the nature of my rôles," said Mr. Royle, in relating to me this portion of his career, "by the following incident: At the end of the season it was decided to bring out a souvenir of the engagement, with signatures by all the people in the company. Each signature was to be accompanied by a line from his or her part. When it came my turn to write, my part was so short that all I had to say in the piece went down as my contribution, in the shape of—
"'Oh, Cæsar! No, by no means!'"
And here began the apparent strokes of ill luck which in the end have proved blessings in disguise. The first one was the failure of Mrs. Potter to come to this country for a tour on one occasion when Royle had been engaged in her support. He did not know that he was free until September, when it was too late to seek other positions.
Thrown out of a job, he turned his attention to playwriting, having at one time thought seriously of taking up literature as a profession. He wrote "Friends," and brought it out in New York the next summer, with a capital furnished by a Western uncle.
The play made a hit after a rather slow start, and he played it on the road for some seasons, following it with another, "Captain Impudence," and later by a farce, "My Wife's Husbands." The latter made a decided hit, but Mr. Royle was unable to obtain road bookings for it owing to a glut of attractions kept out of New York by the unfinished condition of two theaters which should have been ready for them. Shows booked for them, with companies all engaged, had to be placed somewhere pending the completion of the Lyceum and the Hudson, so that the dates were all filled by the time itwas known that "My Wife's Husbands" had caught on. In this crisis, Nat Goodwin, who had just come a cropper with a new offering of his own, rose up and bought the rights to the play, but failed to make good in the part himself and shelved it after two weeks' trial.
Meanwhile, one night when he couldn't sleep, Royle got to thinking about the Indians he used to see when a boy at the Indian reservation not far from Salt Lake. And then there formed in his mind the germ idea of "The Squaw Man"—the Englishman tied to the Indian wife when the way was clear for him otherwise to go back home.
The next morning he told his wife—Selena Fetter—of the scheme, adding that he thought of making a play out of it.
"Oh, don't," she begged him. "Can't you think of something pleasanter? You know 'Friends' gained all its success out of the comedy there was in it."
So he did nothing in the matter then, but later, when he was asked to write a skit for the Lambs' Gambol, he used this idea for a short piece, which went so well that it was used afterward at the annual public gambol, where it repeated its hit.
Royle was now in vaudeville, having cut down "Captain Impudence" to the required time limits. He decided to follow this with "The Squaw Man," and here is where once more his good luck in the guise of bad stepped upon the scene.
The vaudeville managers refused positively to consider a sketch containing more than four people; Royle could not cut "The Squaw Man" to fewer than ten. Had either he or they given way, the four-act play that has proved one of the big New York hits of the season might have remained a sketch and spent its life on the road, instead of tarrying for six months on Broadway.
In this deadlock it occurred to Royle that he would expand the play and try it in a new field, but even after this was done he failed to find a purchaser. Nat Goodwin, to whom he sent it first, turned it down, and Charles Frohman could not read it within the time limit set.
But Royle had active agents in his brother actors, who had seen the thing in its Lambs' Club performance, and who were all anxious to play the leading part. Whenever they got the chance they spoke of the piece to their respective managers, and in this way Royle finally got four of these gentlemen to consent to listen to a reading of the play. The result was the purchase of the rights by Mr. Tyler, of the Liebler Company, on terms which have netted Mr. Royle royalties amounting close to a thousand dollars a week.
The Tall Comedian Exchanged His Inheritancefor a Bowl of Thespian Pottage,but Doesn't Regret It.
De Wolf Hopper's father was a Philadelphia lawyer, and it was intended that Will (his real name) should follow in the paternal footsteps so far as his career was concerned. And, by the way, more men have turned away from the sheepskin to the footlights than from any other one vocation. Reckon them up and you would have a sufficiency of leading men to outfit plays for every theater in New York, oversupplied as that city is with them.
But to return to Hopper.
At the crucial period, the elder Hopper died and the son inherited some money. As there were no automobiles in those days for him to blow it in on, he invested in a much more foolish and infinitely more hazardous luxury—a dramatic company of his own. He had the itch to act, and, being unable to get on the stages controlled by others, he decided that now was his chance to manage a stage of his own.
And what do you suppose he sent himself out in? Nothing less than Robertson's "Caste," with "little Willie" asEccles! Of course the troupe went to smash, but young Hopper had tasted of the life, and there was no staying him now, not even the Quaker blood in his veins. As a matter of fact, the gulf that was dug between himself and his family in those days has never been bridged, a rare exception nowadays, when even the most austere stand ready to forgive theatrical connection—provided the prodigal has sown success along with his wild oats.
The boy—he was scarcely out of his 'teens—contrived to obtain a job asPittacus Greenin "Hazel Kirke," and a song he sang off stage inspired Annie Louise Cary with the belief that he might do well in opera. He actually studied for some time with the Metropolitan in view, and then compromised by taking the barytone part with McCaull in the Sousa opera, "Desirée." Mark Smith fell ill at a critical moment, and, as it is easier to replace a singer than a comedian, Hopperwas put in his place, and has worked his legs and his antics in excess of his singing voice ever since.
He began his career as a star in "Castles in the Air," not much of a success, but followed it with "Wang," which set him on his feet good and hard.
"Wang" lasted him two seasons, and he followed it with "Panjandrums," to my mind a far more entertaining hodge-podge of music and nonsense. In that view the public did not agree with me, for Hopper lost several thousand dollars in pushing the thing to a long run in New York. After that he becameDr. Syntaxin a musical version of "Cinderella at School," which he soon exchanged for the biggest hit in his career—"El Capitan."
Essayed Rôle of Leading Woman at Sixteenin a Play in Which Her Realand Stage Father Were One.
In one sense of the term, Viola Allen never began at all. She plunged right into the midst of her career. To put it differently, she has been a leading woman from the first time she set foot upon the stage.
Her father and mother were both in the profession. Her father, C. Leslie Allen, is acting yet, being with his daughter in "The Toast of the Town." He was doing the father—a specialty of his—in "Esmeralda" at the Madison Square Theater, when Annie Russell, the leading woman, fell ill.
Viola Allen was at that time barely sixteen—just the age of the character. She had been about the theater a good deal with her father, and in the sudden emergency it was suggested that she should play the part.
"They came to me with the proposition," said Miss Allen, in describing the incident, "and I was so absorbed in the story that I began with all eagerness to study the part, without seeming to realize all that it meant to play it. I shall never forget my sensations on that first night when I walked out on the stage in response to the cue, which, as it happens, was given to me by my own father.
"At rehearsals, of course, the auditorium had been dark and empty. Now it was a glow of light and a sea of faces. This is what I should have expected, but somehow I had failed to do so, and now, being confronted with the thing, my wits seemed to fail me.
"My lines went from my memory, but luckily I did not have to speak them until I was close to my father. He, realizing that I must have stage fright, whispered the words to me, and as soon as I heard them I was all right again. I plunged back into my absorption in the story I was helping to depict, and went through to the end without any further trouble."
After her term in "Esmeralda," Miss Allen played Shakespeare leads with John McCullough and the elder Salvini, and then became first assistant to Joseph Jefferson in "The Rivals" and "The Heir at Law." From this she passed under the management of Charles Frohman, and helped lay the foundations of his fortunes, along with Henry Miller, in "Shenandoah," and from its second season and for many years thereafter these two were closely identified with the conspicuous position won for the stock company at the Empire, where Miss Allen'sRosamundin "Sowing the Wind" took the town by storm.
In this connection, it is an odd circumstance that the part Miss Allen most enjoyed playing in the whole Empire list was that ofAudrie Lisdenin Henry Arthus Jones's "Michael and his Lost Angel," a play that ran for only twelve nights in New York, and had been no more successful in London.
Miss Allen handed in her resignation from the company after the production of "The Conquerors," a play of which she wholly disapproved, and she was then starred by the Lieblers in "The Christian," the dramatizing of which was her own suggestion, and from which several people reaped fortunes. When, three years ago, she deliberately cut loose from the Hall Caine type of drama in order to follow her own personal inclinations and take up Shakespeare, she was looked upon almost as a martyr to the cause of art.
And yet the outcome would seem to prove that she was only a shrewd woman of good common sense, after all. Her managers followed "The Eternal City" with Hall Caine's "Prodigal Son," and lost mighty sums upon it.
It is interesting to recall that before Miss Allen finally decided on "The Christian" with which to inaugurate her stellar career she was minded to use a version of Longfellow's "Courtship of Miles Standish". She is very bookishly inclined, and has said that there are two things she prefers to acting—to be an author or to serve as a trained nurse.
Nine years ago, when she was at the height of her success at the Empire, she was asked by a certain paper to state what in her opinion was the one drawback to the full enjoyment of life on the stage, and her prompt answer was "Monotony, the deadly routine engendered by the long run."
Comedian Might Have Gone in for TragedyHad the Wind Not Blown HisCredentials Into a River.
According to a story current some years since, which may or may not be a press-agent yarn, the only reason Francis Wilson is not a tragedian is because a gust of wind blew into the Schuylkill his letter of introduction to the late E.L. Davenport. Like Hopper, Wilson is a native of Philadelphia, where he was born in 1854. The nimbleness of his legs sent him to the stage, where he began as a clog-dancer with a minstrel troupe in the farce, "The Virginia Mummy."
It was during this engagement that he conceived the ambition for the legitimate and obtained from his manager the letter to Davenport, which blew out of his hand as he was reading it on a bridge in Fairmount Park. He claims he hadn't the courage to ask for another one, but struck out for better things later on in a different direction. But this was after he had formed a partnership with James Mackin, with whom he toured the country as one of a song-and-dance team. The two played a long engagement in New York with the San Francisco Minstrels at their "opera house," now the Princess Theater.
Around the Centennial year he returned to Philadelphia and set about realizing his aspirations by obtaining an engagement in very small parts at Mrs. John Drew's Arch Street Theater. This brought him in only ten dollars a week against the fifty he had been getting for clog work. But he made himself popular with the members of the company, and eked out his pay by giving them lessons in fencing and boxing, arts in which he was specially proficient. Indeed, he had just won in a contest, at what is now Madison Square Garden, the title of amateur champion swordsman of America.
These friends in the Drew company aided him in obtaining better parts, and the next year he was engaged as utility man at the Chestnut Street Theater, which then had a stock company. A year with Annie Pixley and another as theBaronin "Our Goblins" brought him up to his engagement as comedian by McCaull for the Casino troupe, where he made his notable hit asCadeaux, one of the two thieves in "Erminie."
It was but natural that his prodigious success should suggest the idea to Wilson of striking out for himself. He had saved a great deal of money, and the year after Hopper became a star Wilson launched out at the same theater—the Broadway—in "The Oolah."
The curtain fell on what even the actors were forced to admit to themselves and one another was a failure. Gloom thick as night pervaded the region behind. For a while Wilson sat there with his head in his hands; then his indomitable courage asserted itself, and he sprang up with the exclamation:
"We have got to make this go. Let's get to work at it."
His company stood nobly by him. His leading woman, Marie Jansen, and the other principals, begged him not to consider them in the alterations, but to give the public more of himself. With much cutting and slashing of the book and innumerable rehearsals, the thing was whipped into shape, and turned out one of the successes of the season. It was followed the next year by "The Merry Monarch," which placed Wilson securely on the throne he continued to occupy until last year, when he decided to step down—or rather up, as no doubt he would prefer to put it, from musical to straight comedy.
Apropos of Wilson's beginnings, a well-known writer on dramatic topics was "reminiscing" some time since, and recalled the wigging he had received in his early days—along in '72 or '73—when he was a very young city editor of the BuffaloEvening Post. He had gone to Dan Shelby's Terrace Theater, and devoted considerable space the next day to praising the work of two men who took part in the variety show there current, and it was for this eulogy he had been called down by his chief. One of the men was Denman Thompson, who was using "Uncle Josh" in its crude, one-act form; the other was Francis Wilson, who was doubling song and dance with Jimmie Mackin.
Interesting Stories of the Origin of World-famous Sacred Lyrics Which Have Been Sung in Every Country on the Globe.