A _ A o ^ 1 u 5 3 P 8 6 ^^ 1 5 9 ^^ " i g 9 = *W.\\ NIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES I V\ "V. r' l*-v X A* "ft^ R .. , S3^ / -.ss*- 5 *yrrfc' ^ #*L*W **'*& E>> Mim JV90* f '-I - a Y&3P %*, J c - Remarks at Coon Club 25 OS 2 Letter to the Coon Club 23 3 "The Portsmouth Curfew" 29 Old Home Week 33 l Address at Dunbarton Old Home Day .... 36 in A Gay Deceiver 40 s 3 Memorial Day 42 The Cities of the Dead 43 Flag Day, June 13, 1901 45 q The Glorious Fourth 46 An Old-Time Thanksgiving 47 ') Christmas 55 ^ Dennis and the Other 56 :'. The "Jiners" 58 ij What Do We Work For? 63 The Boy Finds His Father 67 The Boy's Return 70 The Boy's Life in Washington. No. 1 ... 73 Ll' CONTENTS. Page Tut's "Boy's Letter from Washington. No. 2 . . 75 The Human Woodehuck 79 Oom Taul 82 "Mr. Destiny" . 83 The Democratic Leader 84 Lightning at Close Range 8.) The State's Money 87 The Man of the Hour 90 What Jones Can Say 96 Charles T. Means. The Tribute of a Friend . . 101 Bishop Bradley 103 Frank Dowst 106 Mrs. Aretas Blood 108 Moody Currier 109 Andrew Bunton 113 Because He Was True 115 Neil Bancroft Drew 116 A Mourning Nation. Mark Hanna .... 118 Josiah G. Bellows 119 The Country Lawyer 122 Ruel Durkee 124 Oilman Marston 126 Selections from the Writings of Henry Marcus Putney. Christmas, The Christian world has wreathed its natal day in the brightest and best of earth. Its ceremonies illustrate the tenderest affections, the highest hopes, the most unalloyed happiness of mortal man, and typify the faith, the aspirations, and the delights of immortality. They banish for the time what is hard and cruel and hateful in life: the greed, the scheming selfishness, the reckless reach for power, the mad rush for position, the remorse- less destruction of rivals, and usher in the simplicity, the beauty, the generosity, the gayety of childhood; the care and affectionate pride of parents; the thought- ful regard of friends, and the sustaining piety of all who believe in Him that came preaching "Peace on earth, good will to man." The church, resplendent in garlands and lights and resonant with joyous carols; the Christmas tree, rich in the fruitage of plans and work for others; the home, abounding in glad surprises and abundant fruition of the hopes and anticipations of weeks; the banquet hall, where the feast is spread; the street, where greetings are exchanged, all these are testimonies that man is better and capable of better things than he appears to be at other seasons; that at times he lives for others nnd finds his greatest delight in so doing. The ex- pansion of Christmas observances shows how satisfying 10 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF they are to the best longings of the heart. For a long time they were confined to one or two sects, but of late they command the endorsement of the entire Christian world, including not only the professed disciples of Christ but all who are associated with them. In Chris- tian countries the unbeliever is about as zealous a par- ticipant in Christmas ceremonies and joys as his pious neighbor, and among worshipers there are no separat- ing creeds on that day. The obligation to be good, un- selfish, and kind, to be happy and make all others happy, to be merry and wish all others full measure of merriment, to be generous and grateful and glad, to illustrate in heart and soul that it is more blessed to give than to receive, is everywhere recognized. English Pomp and Paupers. About ten o'clock, August 1, 1900, General Streeter of Concord and the writer stood upon the sidewalk opposite St. George's Hall, which is the court house in Liverpool, England, and saw in front of the great stone edifice a splendid coach drawn by a pair of beautiful black horses, whose gold-mounted harnesses gleamed through the rich silk netting that hung over them, sup- porting the heavy tassels that festooned their legs. Upon the panels of the door of the coach glistened the royal coat of arms. Upon the box sat a driver, beside him a footman, and behind stood two outriders, all in full uniform. In front of the team, in regular order, were twelve tall and stalwart men uniformed in long HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 11 cream-colored coats with red facings and gilt buttons, 6hort velvet pants and top boots, above which appeared silk stockings and silver knee buckles and feathered hats which would challenge the hot envy of an Amos- keag Veteran. Each carried in his hand some insignia of authority, one a spear, another a mace, and the others various weapons. In front of them posed a trumpeter. When all was ready, the cortege moved solemnly down the street toward the Adelphi Hotel. Streeter and I followed on the sidewalk, for he was a guest at that tavern. When we approached the entrance the coach stood in front and the coachman and footman and out- riders stood with folded arms upon it. The twelve guardsmen in cream-colored coats had cleared the pas- sageway to the hotel door, the hall, and the broad stair- way leading down to it, and stood lined up six on each side of the vacant space. We made our way through the crowd that had gathered about and went towards the two spearmen who held the walk on. that side, who majestically ordered us to "Fall back!" and made a move as if to spear us with their weapons. Streeter fell back a step or two, and then his Yankee dander rose, and he said, "I pay ten shillings a day for a room in the Adel- phi, and I 'm going to it if all the queen's army stands in the way." He went ahead, and I, considering how thick he was and that the spear must go through him before it hit me, followed. The guardsman, paralyzed by his audacity, did not impale him, and we got safely in and took positions behind the armed gentlemen in uniform. Soon after there appeared on the top of the stairs another imposing, character in gorgeous accouter- 12 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF ments, and behind him a small man in a three-cornered hat, a black swallow-tailed coat with gilt buttons marked V. R., a velvet vest similarly adorned, knee breeches, black silk stockings, and patent leather shoes with silver buckles, and the pair solemnly marched with majestic tread down the stairway, across the hall, and out over the sidewalk to the coach. The usher opened the door of the carriage and the guards stood with uncovered heads until the personage in swallow-tails had entered, when the trumpeter sounded an advance, the guards fell in behind, the outriders resumed their places, and the procession moved up the street to the court house. As the vision of greatness and glory disappeared, I sank upon a settee in the hall and gasped, "The Prince of Wales!" Streeter, in whose head magnificence and might are always associated with courts, whispered feebly, "The lord chief justice!'' When we were able we asked the hotel clerk who he was. He rose to a grand height, looked down with a pitying glance at the two ignorant foreigners, and said proudly, "The high sheriff. He stops here." Then I fell down again, and, between convulsions, said, "The high sheriff! Oh, how I wish I could see Nat Doane with such an outfit as that!" To which Streeter, with characteristic Concord jealousy, responded, "Or Frank Edgerly!" I have related this incident, which I have not exag- gerated, because it illustrates the pomp and ceremony with which every representative of royal authority moves in England, the loyalty, or, as I should call it, the servility and obsequiousness of the people and the burdens they bear in the shape of taxes for the support HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 13 of an utterly useless horde of officials and blue bloods. An Englishman will tell you he is as free and independ- ent as you; that his government, while nominally a monarchy, is as democratic as yours; but I question whether there is a civilized country on the map in which the royalty and nobility are more burdensome; in which so large a proportion of the population is sup- ported in idleness and luxury at the expense of the workers; in which the distance between the rich and the poor is so great. Granting that the government of England is a good one of its kind, that it is the best of that kind to be found anywhere, the fact remains that it is not a government of the people, by the people, for the people, unless they were born with silver spoons in their mouths. In a previous article I have said something about the direct cost of the royal establishment in money (which is more than four millions a year), and given a list of the titled leeches who suck most of the money out of the treasury, and mentioned a typical pauper who was starving at the palace gate, which an armed force pre- vented him from entering; but this is only a beginning. The most beautiful and fertile part of rural England that I have seen is the section about Leamington. For twenty miles on either side of that lovely town the land is owned, as it has been for centuries, by four families who exact a rental of about seven dollars and a half an acre from the occupants and spend the proceeds in lux- urious elegance and idleness in the castles on the estates or in palaces in London. The most valuable real estate in London is owned by the lords and dukes and counts 14 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF and marquises, who derive fabulous incomes from the rentals, although neither they nor their ancestors ever earned a penny in it. And Leamington and London are in this respect like all England, except a few manufacturing districts. Britain has an army of about a quarter of a million men in Africa and another in China, but go where you will in England, at every gate and every corner, you meet a brace of red-coated soldiers, who are being trained to defend and carry into new territory the flag that sym- bolizes royal authority and power. Almost as often you meet a beggar. If I am not mistaken one person in every nine in England is a pauper. What proportion is nobility, and, therefore, much more costly public charges than the paupers, I cannot say, but it is very large. If I were commissioned to devise a new coat of arms for England it would bear upon its face a queen sur- rounded by a countless family, and a group of paupers kept at a distance by a soldier. And yet it must be said that the English people appear to like it. At least the great majority of the rich and poor are very pro- fuse in their professions of loyalty. There is an under- current of bitter discontent among the working people, who feel that in a country like the United States they could greatly better their condition, which they have no hope of doing where they are. Said an intelligent cabman to me at Warwick: "I work for twelve shillings a week. I have eight children. I pay four shillings a week rent and six pence a week taxes. What can I do but live from hand to mouth? My brother rents HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 15 a farm of the Earl of Warwick. He pays thirty shill- ings an acre rent and the taxes. What can he do more than barely live? If the earl's estate were cut up into eighty one-hundred-acre farms eighty families could live on them and save something every year, but no one can get ahead when the earl takes all the profits." This is the feeling that runs through the middle classes, but it finds little expression. All English lips are shaped to sing "God save the queen." All England bares its head when royalty rides by. So far as out- ward appearances go all working Englishmen are at least resigned to forever pay rent for the property they can never hope to own and divide their earnings with those who never earn anything. Not only this, but all Irishmen, while they spend most of their time in agitating against the government that has oppressed them for centuries, always respond promptly to its call for men and money. The only explanation is that they are so used to it that they cannot do otherwise. "No Mortgage on My House/' Letter to U. S. Government Relative to Inquiries about a Mortgage. Manchester, N. H., December 20, 1891. Robert P. Porter, .Superintendent of the Census: Dear Sir: Your numerous epistles in which you assert, repeat, and reassert that my house on Walnut street is shingled with a mortgage, and demand to know what use I made of the proceeds, have been duly received. 16 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF I have treated them as I do all letters from harm- less cranks, who insist on thrusting their pet illusions under people's noses, put them in the waste basket, for really I had supposed you had either been bitten by Jerry Simpson or Senator Puffer or gone mad on the mortgage question, or that your communications were mere pleasantries or excuses for keeping some deserving maiden on the payroll of your department. But the blood-red ink in which you print the law, making it a crime to neglect to answer the questions of your Mightiness, indicates that you are not only desper- ately but dangerously in earnest in this business. Hence, I answer, that I am no anarchist, and blood red scares me I have no recollection of ever executing a mortgage of any kind. I think there is no person on earth who ever saw me sign one. I know that none is recorded in this country, and, to the best of my knowl- edge and belief, I own the estate at 99 Walnut street and all others standing in my name in fee simple, clear and free from all encumbrances. Of course if you say the house is mortgaged, it is mortgaged, but you will see that it was done without my knowledge or consent. I cannot state positively what was done with the money. If Steve Elkins did it he probably gave the proceeds to Russell Harrison. If it was Bill Chandler you can bet he invested them in Boston & Maine stock; and, if it was ex-Senator Blair, I advise you to search the pockets of Susan B. Anthony, or Mrs. Scott Mills of Texas may have squandered it on plasters for his wounds. But that is your business not mine. HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 17 I am no census bureau and the law sends no man to jail for refusing to answer my questions. When you have hunted the rascal down, please write me, and if any of the money is found on his person send a check for the amount. Congratulating you upon your zeal and efficiency in investigating the mortgage indebtedness of the country, especially that which is purely fictitious, I am Yours truly, HENRY M. PUTNEY. The Booker Washington Dinner. The South, the reconstructed, pacified, regenerated New South, the South in which "face-the-future" Re- publicans have proposed to build up a great and domi- nant party of their own by turning down all those who have sympathized and acted with them in the past and distributing the federal offices among Democratic sore- heads, place hunters, and renegades, is in a state of mind bordering on insanity because Theodore Roose- velt, President of the United States (in spite of the votes of the aforesaid South), has had at dinner a col- ored man. Booker T. Washington is easily first among the eight million colored citizens of this country, and is every- where recognized as the wisest, most competent, and most devoted of their leaders. In intellectual ability, in private character, in gentlemanly bearing, he is the peer of any man in the South. He is the head of an 18 SELECTIOXS FROM THE WRITINGS OF educational institution which is doing more for the South as a whole than any other man that lives. His name is honored and he is respected wherever high- minded, devoted and successful teachers are held in esteem. But he has a black skin, and for this reason, and this only, his presence by invitation at the President's table is taken as an insult by every swaggering white ruffian and rascal and bulldozer and ballot-box stuffer among the southern "gentlemen of family, wealth, and cul- ture." These gentry are not going to secede any more. They had enough of that in the sixties. They are not going to refuse any offices they can reach. They never had and never will have office enough. But they are not going to love Roosevelt hereafter. He has wounded their "sacred honah," and they want it understood that they resent it. Their newspapers denounce him. They hiss him in their theaters and hang him in effigy on their streets. All his honeyed phrases about the sunny land where his mother was born sour in their hearts. All the taffy he has scattered among them turns to ragweed in their mouth. Unless they are mightily mistaken "he has made it impossible to build up a re- spectable white man's party in the South, and destroyed all of the splendid work of reconciliation that he accom- plished in the first month of his administration" by breaking bread with a negro. HENRY MABCU8 PUTNEY. 19 A Loved and Trusted President. The (attempted) assassination of President McKinley has revealed to the American people the depth and in- tensity of their affection and respect for him. That they held him in high regard they knew, and had shown by re-electing him to the chief magistracy of the nation; but how much they all loved him, how implicitly they trusted him, how much they valued him, they were not fully aware until they found themselves overwhelmed and appalled by the announcement that an assassin had robbed them of him. Then, as members of a family when the head and chief support and best beloved is stricken down, they one and all were prostrated by a sense of personal bereavement and irreparable loss, which told them how dear he was to them and how much they depended upon him. There have been other great and good presidents, two of whom were crowned with martyrdom, and they have commanded respect and admiration, not only because they were the chosen chiefs of the republic and the rep- resentatives of its dignity, power, and purposes, but be- cause they were capable, faithful, patriotic, pure and successful in the administration of their office; but on the whole list there is not another who so endeared him- self to all sections and parties and classes and sects. Washington was hailed as first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen by those who fol- 20 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF lowed and supported him, and Lincoln was idolized by his party, but both were bitterly antagonized and as- sailed by implacable opponents whose enmity never rested while they lived and who refused them any but the tribute of surly silence after they were dead. Adams and Jefferson and Jackson and Grant and Harri- son were admired and trusted, but against them all rolled constantly a strong tide of hostility, which grew in vol- ume and force instead of diminishing all the time they were in office. McKinley can almost be said to have disarmed oppo- sition. With marvelous tact and wisdom he had created a universal feeling among seventy-six millions of people that he was their President, interested in the welfare of each and every one of them and thoroughly devoted to the promotion of their happiness. He had united the North and the South. He had harmonized the dif- ferences between the East and the West. He had well- nigh eliminated divisions between Democrats and Re- publicans so far as their estimate of him was concerned. He had brought together the factions of his own party. He had conquered the prejudices of those who had op- posed his nomination and made them his most zealous supporters. He had made friends of all with whom he had come in contact. And he had done it all without sacrificing a principle, without abandoning a policy, without deserting a friend, without deceiving anyone. His simplicity and frankness and kindness charmed the people. The purity of his private life and his devo- tion to his aged mother and invalid wife made his name a household word in every home. His sleepless and HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 21 stalwart Americanism stirred the national pride and patriotism. His sagacity and skill in managing men appealed successfully to the admiration of all who ad- mire mastery. His whole personality made him the man who all Americans felt was a type of the best, and enthroned him in their hearts. With abounding love for the man went implicit trust in the President. Public confidence rested in him. His death would not mean a change of government policy or the delivery of government machinery into weak hands. It would not threaten the integrity or the power of the nation. It would not even portend a change of administration. But all business staggers under the blow the assassin struck. "We were safe with McKin- ley. We knew whatever he did would be right. With another we do not know. Losing him we only know that another cannot fill his place" is the feeling that pervades all circles, and, however much all may comfort themselves with the thought that "God reigns and the government at Washington still lives," and congratulate themselves that McKinley had done his work so well that it will be easy for his successor to follow in his footsteps, there are none who do not realize that he can- not be spared. Judgment and the instinct of self-pres- ervation unite with love and sympathy in reverential tribute to the man whose life hangs in the balance at Buffalo. 22 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF The President is Dead. The President is dead. No words can add to the force of this terrible announcement or give expression to the grief it causes or add to the heartfelt tribute a stricken nation pays to him who has fallen by the hand of the assassin. In every American home the story of his pure, brave, serene, useful, inspiring life is known. In every American heart his memory is enshrined. How we all loved him, admired him, and leaned upon him we know now, but it cannot be told. In sorrow and apprehension, in silence and tears, his people, who are all the people that love liberty and admire human great- ness and goodness, wait while he is reverently and ten- derly borne from the scene of his martyrdom back to his last resting-place at his Ohio home, and time has some- what tempered the poignancy of their grief, because language is powerless in the shadow of such an awful bereavement. We know, we think, we feel, we try to reason. We can talk to no purpose, at present, except to say, "God reigns and the government at Washington still lives." HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 23 A National Funeral, The nation stopped to bury its dead. Sadly and rev- erently the American people, with one accord, turned from their usual occupations to pay tribute of affection and respect to the memory of their great President, guide, and friend. From ocean to ocean, from the lakes to the gulf, as never before, business was suspended on the day when McKinley was buried, and everywhere there was display of mourning emblems and other fitting testimony to the grief which had overwhelmed a great country and cast a deep shadow upon seventy-five mil- lions of people. It was a universal demonstration and it was spon- taneous, genuine, and sincere. In it all distinctions of party, religious creed, class conditions, and nationality disappeared. It spoke for high and low, rich and poor, native and emigrant. It expressed the sorrow of the farm, the factory, the store, the mine, the shop, and of all the homes. Its significance lay in its universality and its sincerity. It was not official proclamation nor eloquent .eulogy nor imposing procession nor elaborate display of mourning decoration nor half-masted flags that best voiced the sense of loss which oppressed the United States, but the demeanor of the plain people who instinctively and almost unconsciously contributed to the solemnity of the day. 24 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF In Manchester as elsewhere there was fitting observ- ance by the authorities, by all who are expected to speak public sentiment on important occasions, and by all who control business enterprises; but more significant than this was the movement along our streets of the unlearned, the poor, the almost unknown, who passed up and down in sorrow and silence because they were oppressed by a sense of personal bereavement which they scarcely understood and could not explain. We saw men, women and children, some of them born in other countries or of foreign parents here, some of them unable to read in any language, many of them unable to read English, some of them with no possessions in this country and many of them with only hopes to sustain them, men, women, and children who have been told by demagogues that their only chance was in a change of government and that for them any change of rulers and policies would be for the better, people with no knowledge of our constitution and only the vaguest conception of the principles of our country, who went back and forth with bowed heads and moistened eyes and closed lips as if death had entered their homes and taken from them their best friend. Without reading, without close reasoning, without asking themselves or others why, they had come to re- gard McKinley as a President in whom was typified all they loved and reverenced, and to repose in him their faith. They felt that he was their President and they mourned him as their dead. Other classes more fortu- nate were pervaded by the same feeling and it was every- where revealed in decorous, devout, individual observ- ances, as well as in funeral ceremony. HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 25 If there has been more pomp and pageantry when monarchs have been borne to their tombs, there has never been in the world's history a ruler's funeral which so testified to a universal feeling that he was great and good as was seen yesterday in the United States. Remarks at Coon Club. Pertinent Points in Locals. The naked truth in locals is a female to be avoided; you can't go with her without shocking your friends and getting yourself into trouble. Keep company with Truth you perhaps may, but she must be clothed with concealment and fiction and fabrications and evasions that at times her own mother won't know from false- hood. Tell the truth, tell it fearlessly, not always, not generally. It won't do. At least it won't do in Man- chester or Nashua, where people are naughty and have hot tempers, and I have my doubts about it even in Con- cord. But if we must speak nothing but good of the dead, if we must tell white lies about the living, we can at least avoid doing it for money or doing it mali- ciously. Something is due to the sensibilities, the vanity, the blindness, the ambition, the itch for notoriety, and the other weaknesses of our patrons, but the reporter who will misstate or conceal a fact for pay should be kicked out of the profession, and he who does it out of spite with a purpose to injure, annoy or exasperate people will be very sure to be without occupation, for the paper 26 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF on which he works is bound to go to the wall unless it discharges him. A newspaper is a business institution as much as a cotton mill or shoe shop. It may be, and often is, started to air the pet notions, avenge the pet grievances or promote the pet ambitions of somebody who imagines that the world is waiting to catch the same kind of itch that he has, but it does not last long on that basis. It has to get on to a broader platform or its remains are carried off by the sheriff. As a rule nobody cares what an editor or reporter thinks about one thing or another, whether he is sore in one spot or another, or whether he loves one person or another. All the patron of a newspaper wants at the hands of the men who make it is what they know. What they imagine or fancy or think is of little account, and so the province of the newspaper workers is to furnish facts, just as a factory furnishes cloth and a shoe shop fur- nishes shoes to customers. This is especially true of the locals, which are the strength and support of every newspaper published in a small place. They must be the truth, not necessarily the whole truth, not the naked truth, but they must be filled with facts, veneered if you like with flattery, and ornamented, if you can, with wit and humor, but never distorted by spleen or venality, or made offensive by spite, or rendered silly by smartness. There is no profession in which uniform good nature, freedom from prejudice and ability to meet and treat everybody as a friend counts for more than in local reporting, and none in which mere smarties who say sharp things for the sake of saying them are more out of place. HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 27 It is to be borne in mind that public knowledge and public opinion are great correctives in locals in a place which is not so large that its citizens are mostly strang- ers to each other. You may lie about far-away folks and be believed, but when you attempt to misrepresent those in your own neighborhood you deceive nobody. If you write up the late Mr. Percent as a profuse, generous, openhanded man, when he was an old skinflint, it cheats nobody. If you plaster Old Pecksniff all over with taffy and describe him as an honorable, high-minded gentle- man, you don't fool people about him; and if you de- scribe some Jezebel as an angel of sweetness and light, you do not set people to looking to see her wings grow. All this the public discounts and gets down to the real facts and then concludes that you are either an ignora- mus or were paid to say ridiculous things. So, too, when you say mean things that are not true. A man passes in his own neighborhood and own town for about what he is worth, and a reporter who attempts to write him down may annoy him and gratify his enemies, but he does not really change the public estimate of him. Hence it follows that extravagance in compliments and certain concealments in the same line are harmless; that the rich clothing you hang upon Truth pleases her and keeps her warm and hurts nobody else. Hence, too, it follows, the spiteful slander, while it exasperates and stings the one at whom it is aimed, does not really dam- age him and injures only the reporter and the publisher. Tell the truth. Tell it pleasantly. Tell it profusely. Tell it as you would be willing to have it told if you were the other party. 28 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF Goods must be put up in attractive styles or they will not sell. So of locals. It is not enough that the truth be there, and that it is not naked, but it must be set in colors that please and in shapes that will not offend. Letter to the Coon Club. Paris, June 30, 1900. C. S. Bussell, Secretary Coon Club: My Dear Bussell: I have your note asking for a letter to be read at the semiannual outing of the Coon Club, July 14. In reply: I swore off writing when I left New Hampshire, thinking that after twenty-eight years of infliction my friends and fellow craftsmen deserved a rest from my composition; and even if I were inclined to break that pledge I am too busy to do it, for my time is completely filled with official work and dancing attend- ance upon social functions, of which we are called to an average of at least three every twenty-four hours. I can only suggest that if the Coons will locate their next outing in Paris it will be greatly to their advantage and that of the city for these reasons among others: The coon is a nocturnal animal and this is a nocturnal burg. Nobody does anything by day everybody does everything by night and no questions asked. The ladies of the town are wondrously beautiful, marvelously arrayed, and agreeable beyond comparison. Cab fares are cheap. No water is used as a beverage. The tobacco is so vile that it is only smoked in cigarette form. Every- HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 29 thing is open to reporters. The newspapers are small, cheap, and weak, and sadly in need of an example of New Hampshire hustle and hold on. Come over. I am going to Switzerland next week, to return later, and I will tell you all I know that is fit to print. Mean- time, give my kind regards to the boys and thank them for remembering me. Yours truly, H. M. PUTNEY. "The Portsmouth Curfew/' There is no more quiet, respectable, and conservative city on the American continent than Portsmouth. Tom Whipple insists that in these respects it is entitled to rank with Ninevah, Babylon, and others of the same class that foreign scholars and savants are always ex- ploring and bragging about; but, be that as it may, there is no municipal territory this side the ocean better fitted to be the abiding-place of a man who hates a racket, is proud of his ancestors, and has a steady in- come from permanent investments. Time was when they built ships and bought and sold rum, soap, and other groceries at Portsmouth; when there were greasy mechanics on her streets, and women in calico gowns in her houses, and dirty-faced children in her yards; but this has gone by. She retired from business long ago, and for years she has tolerated nothing that looked like a vulgar scramble for money within her borders. Her last factory, which had been looked upon as a nuisance 30 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF by her best people, was burned down soon after the war, and the one man who was reckless enough to propose that it be rebuilt was driven away by the indignant cit- izens. She has farmed out her politics to several dis- creet dealers who manage them without making a noise, and she has her blacksmithing done at Kittery, where the sound of the anvil will not disturb her reveries. Her sidewalks are of good, old-fashioned brick, and her houses are all supplied with brass knockers and and- irons. Her citizens live on their incomes and venerate kneebreech.es. To such a people old customs are, of course, inexpressibly dear, and any attempt to set them aside, or modify them, after the fashion of the jostling world outside, is looked upon as little better than rob- bing a family tomb of your grandfather's bones. One of these customs sets all the bells in town to tolling when a resident dies, and another one rings the one on the town house for fifteen minutes every evening, be- ginning at nine o'clock, at which time all respectable candles go out, and all the first families go to bed. It is needless to say that these were instituted before the oldest newspaper in America was published, or the first clock or watch was invented, but they have been sacred- ly kept up ever since. At least they were religiously observed until about a month ago, when Alderman Wil- liam Martyn, a carpet-bag sort of a scoffer at graveyard mould and your great-grandfather's snuff-box, got into his head the notion that if a man died his neighbors would find it out from the newspapers and bury him, and that when folks began to grow sleepy, they would consult their timepieces and ascertain whether it was HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 31 bedtime without wearing out the bells and the bellman in furnishing the information. Little that alderman knows about Portsmouth newspapers or Portsmouth people; but he had a presentiment that there would be trouble if he acted directly upon this idea, and he ac- cordingly attempted to fool the ancients by getting up in a meeting of the board and saying that he knew of a man who was sick and who was annoyed by this bell business, and because of this he moved that the mayor be instructed to have the tolling and the ringing dis- pensed with. The motion passed, and the next night there was no nine-o'clock bell. The hundred and twenty-seven matrons who for eighty-nine years have warmed their nightgowns from fifteen minutes before nine until the bell struck stood through the livelong night holding them up to the grates, and were found there benumbed and stiff the next morning by the milk- men from Eye. Six first settlers, in wigs and gold- headed canes, who have always taken an evening walk, leaving their houses at 8.40 and traveling south by the cemetery until the bell warned them to return, kept on and on and on their weary way until they were taken up a week later by the police of Boston. Sixteen sets of philosophers, who have met and played whist and drank punch until the curfew, every evening since Washington was inaugurated, kept at it until they fell under the tables. No stores were closed, no houses were locked, no shutters were put up that night. In short, from the time when the bell should have rung until morning, Portsmouth yawned and stretched and waited and said, "What a long evening this is!" and so it sat and yawned 32 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF and waited night after night and day after day until last week, when a stray copy of the Boston Herald was picked up in the street, and found to contain the hor- rible intelligence that the aldermen had stopped the curfew. Then there was such an outburst of indigna- tion as has not been seen since congress proposed to abolish the navy yard; not a noisy outbreak, of cour.-o, but a deep, eminently respectable, solemn sort of a pro- test. Meantime the aldermen, having come to the real- izing sense of the enormity of the crime, had fled the city. Bill Martyn, the arch-contriver of the innovation, was held in the storehouse of Ward's distillery; Hackett had taken refuge behind the guns of Fort Constitution, and all the others were likewise missing, so the order could not be rescinded. One expedient remained. The church wardens, of whom ex-Mayor Sise is chief, made the necessary arrangements to have the bells on all the churches rung every night at nine o'clock, and when- ever a man dies. And now Portsmouth goes decently to bed at that hour and sleeps the sleep of the just until morning. Order is restored, and all is quiet upon the Piscataqua, but Bill Martyn is a doomed man. HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 33 Old Home Week. Old Home Week has made a record for itself in New Hampshire and fitted into a place in our yearly pro- gram from which it will never be ousted. Its first an- nouncement, little more than two years ago, created but little interest. But it was so persistently and enthusi- astically championed by its originator and those who entered into the promotion of it, and had so much real merit in it, that it scored about forty observances the first year, nearly twice that number last year, and its promoters hope to record one hundred meetings this year. It drops into place so easily and naturally that it is strange it was n't suggested and adopted before. The enjoyment of an Old Home Week gathering con- sists in its simplicity. It may be all very well to have street parades, bands of music and feasts that cost con- siderable money and tire out all the women in town in preparation, but such are not typical meetings. The genuine Old Home Week meeting is held in a grove in the basket picnic style, each family providing enough food for itself and a few others who may come from out of town. Impromptu speeches by former residents and by the old residents, with singing and social greet- ings, are sufficient to satisfy the true idea of the occa- sion and do not cost much money or tire anyone to death. Of course much thought and care must be given to making a list of former residents and to sending them 34 BELECTIOXS FROM THE WRITINGS OF invitations to come home to the meeting. We are led to make these simple suggestions from noticing the labored effort made in some places trying to get the movement started, and the hesitancy in other places about starting at all from a mistaken idea of the ex- pense and effort necessary. What wonderful possibilities for conferring inesti- mable blessings upon a vast number of people there are in this movement! We cannot imagine the feelings that are stirred in the breast of the New Hampshire boy in the far West or elsewhere when he receives the little note from his native town inviting him to its Old Home Week meeting. The old schoolhouse where he sat when a boy, the stream where he fished, the pond where he swam, the brambly pasture where he went for the cows at night as a barefoot boy come vividly to mind, and he thinks of the loved ones of his boyhood days, tears roll down his face, and he is moved as perhaps he has not been for years. That invitation has been worth all it cost whether it is accepted or not. Think of the tens of thousands of such invitations that go out of New Hampshire every year and of the thoughts and feelings of home that they arouse, and it is possible to get a faint idea of the extent and inestimable value of the Old Home Week movement among those who do not return. But thousands do return and participate in Old Home Week exercises every year and count it time and money well expended. It does them good and does us good. It keeps alive and glowing their love for the old an- cestral home and makes us all broader and wiser and HENRY MARCOS PUTNEY. 35 happier for it. They want to come year after year and we want to have them, and every town that observes the event in a sensible way once will be more interested in the second gathering and will make it a permanent annual affair, as it should be made. Old Home Week in New Hampshire has been definitely fixed to com- mence every year upon the third Saturday in August, which is the seventeenth this year. Don't forget the bonfires upon the hilltops on the evening of the first day to flash from hill to hill the great joy of the return of so many absent sons and daughters, and the clergy- men should not forget appropriate services on the Sabbath as a token of respect to returning friends. The committees should be appointed and invitations prepared and sent in ample season to allow all to ar- range to come home. Let us make it the gala week of the whole year and begin now to prepare to keep open house for Old Home Week friends. We shall miss some that were with us last year and the year before, but our tears will be mingled with joy that they came home that last time, which perhaps they would not have done had it not been for Old Home Week. It will do us all good to take time from this active, bustling way of living to meet and greet the friends of our boyhood days upon every Old Home Week occasion that occurs. 36 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF Address at Dunbarton Old Home Day. If I rightly conceive the true spirit of the Old Home Week it is of a reminiscent character, and our gather- ing is one in which the past may properly be recalled, an experience meeting in which some personal ob- servations are at least allowable. What little I say will be shaped with this idea. Since I left the old town I have floated with the tide, and I have no fault to find with it, for it has carried me into pleasant places and among agreeable people. Destiny and I have never had any trouble. I have seen at their best the states of the Union east of the Rocky Mountains, and I have enjoyed the companionship of men and women who have been good to me and helped me to a fair measure of success and an enjoyable exist- ence. But I have nowhere found greener fields and pastures, more fascinating forests, more limpid brooks, more melodious birds, clearer skies, or more gorgeous sunsets than here. As to the sunrises, they were too soon for me in those halcyon days, and I can make no comparison. In forty years I have seen no sweeter girls than those I courted by the light of the Dunbarton moon, and no brighter boys than those for whom the girls mittened me, and I know that from Canada to the Gulf coast there has not been assembled in one school a group of etudents more hungry for knowledge, more faithful in HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 37 seeking it, or more capable of securing it than the sixty who taught me how little I had learned in college and drove me constantly to midnight study in a vain effort to keep ahead of them in their books, and otherwise avoid exhibiting my ignorance in the old academy three decades ago. Education, we are told, has been greatly improved since then. We know its expense has greatly expanded. Students are now accomplished. They can fiddle and sing and paint beanpots and mold clay into images of the teacher, and march and countermarch, and posture and pose, and bestride a "bike" with in- finite grace, but for solid basic educational development calculated to help win bread and butter and make people good for something besides ornaments, I will match the record of my high school and its lyceum annex against that of any and all that can be brought by your latter-day professors of progress. The mature men and women who tilled the farms and presided over the homesteads of Dunbarton in my boyhood have always been my ideals. In them was typi- fied all that was great, grand, strong, ennobling, and productive in the old Puritan, without his bigotry, nar- rowness, and intolerance. Their inborn honesty, which was proof against all temptation; their intelligence and physical strength, which were always masterful; their in- dustry, which was untiring; their conscientious devotion to duty, which never slept and never wearied; their thrift and frugality, which never failed, and their fecundity, which made them the parents of great families of robust, reliant, resolute children; their perfect loyalty to their God, their country, their neighbors, and themselves, 453454 38 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF were the characteristics of a yeomanry which it seems to me I have never seen elsewhere. I am proud of old Dunbarton; I like to sound her praises. I like to tell people, who talk about the great- ness and glory of other places, of a town whose people were so peaceable and sensible that no lawyer could live among them, and so healthy that all doctors gave it a wide berth; whose clergymen were not so anxious to give the devil a chance that they took all-summer vaca- tions, and whose teachers were not literary dudes, but hard-working, practical instructors, trainers, and guides; whose boards of selectmen contained more brains and conscience than a half dozen average city governments, and whose annual town meetings were perfect illustra- tions of the spirit of a pure democracy; of a town in which religion was in evidence seven days in the week; and all were so observant of Christian proprieties that they not only supported the minister by contributions but by attendance on divine worship, and so sensible of the value of an education that no sacrifice for the sup- port of the common schools was deemed too great; of a town in which for half a century there was neither lawyer, doctor, demagogue, nor professional politician, neither factory, railroad, hotel, saloon, nor store, except the postoffice; of an exclusively farming population whose well-directed energy enabled its members to live well, enjoy the good things of life, educate their chil- dren, acquire in most cases a competency, and so nearly abolish poverty that their almshouse was for a long series of years without an inmate; of a town which to my mind was a veritable rural Utopia. HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 39 Those of us who have gone out from Dunharton and whose interests are largely in other places have good reason to remember fondly and gratefully the town, for it is the source from which have been drawn in steady volume the brain and brawn that have created and pre- served the communities in which we live and the busi- ness in which we are engaged. This is especially true of the Manchester colony. Our greatest student and most accomplished scholar, our ablest financier and most distinguished public man, who rose step by step to the highest honors the state could give, the Hon. Moody Currier; our most gifted orator and most successful lawyer, who with your help we propose to send to the United States senate next year, the Hon. Henry E. Burnham; our eminently competent and faithful superintendent of the Industrial School for a quarter of a century and member of the governor's council, the Hon. John C. Ray; and others who have been active in our manufacturing, our build- ing, and our trade, and in our professional, political, social, and religious life, were all at some time identified with the history of Dunbarton. And there are no black sheep in the flock; few of us are great, but we are all good; few of us have grown rich, but none of us are pau- pers; few of us are famous, but none are infamous. Now my mission here today, beyond my own gratifica- tion, is to say from the standpoint of a Manchester man that it will never do to let the fountains from which vir- tue and virility flow into the cities dry up, and to ex- press my hope and belief that in the near future we shall see in Dunbarton and other agricultural towns 40 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF favorably located a reaction, a return, a recovery, a reju- venation, which will make the fertile soil more valuable than it is now, which will fill the old homesteads with children, which will reinstall the comfort, thrift, and contentment of the old-time population and re-establish the imperialism of the strong, steady-going, thorough- bred American farmer, and thus continue the supply of new blood, which is essential to save the centers of popu- lation from decay, degradation, and disappearance. I could elaborate this idea at much length, but, mind- ful of the warning of your chairman that any man ex- cept the governor who attempts to talk more than ten minutes will be blacklisted and not allowed to come next year, I merely throw it out as a text for the minister some Sunday when he wants to preach a practical ser- mon, and, thanking you for your reception and atten- tion, I make way for others. A Gay Deceiver. November 8, 1879. "Once for all, let him inform both friends and enemies that Mr. Hutchins no more contemplates a severance of his present relations with The Post than suicide. How the story originated he does not know, but that there is not a particle of truth in it he knows, and here makes proclamation." Washington Post. Now, Brother Hutchins, this is too bad! After com- ing to New Hampshire and coquetting as you did with our matronly sister, The Union; after sitting up with her for several long evenings and eating her doughnuts HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 41 and cheese; after permitting it to be publicly announced throughout the country that you would get a divorce from the vinegary Post, and on the first of November come on here and marry her; after raising to a fabu- lous height the expectations of all her family and mak- ing them believe that she would be taken off their hands and securely planted in the bosom of a handsome man like you; when the time for fulfilling your promises arrives and the wedding cake has been ordered and all the uncles and nephews and cousins are aching for a chance to give her away, you rise up, and in this sudden and heartless manner declare the match off, that you are going to stick to your old love and won't come to New Hampshire at all. And not a word of explanation either; not a syllable to tell us that since the fall elec- tions Tilden has concluded not to invest any more of his savings in newspapers; not a hint that the national com- mittee, under the circumstances, considers New Hamp- shire lost past redemption, and therefore don't care a copper whether the party press here is weak or strong; but simply a. curt and cruel declaration that you won't come. Why, what a wicked old rooster you are! And then you had the impudence to write privately to the outraged and chagrined lady and her family, that, though you could do better than marry her, you would send a man. Send a man! Just as if men were so scarce in Democratic newspaper offices in New Hamp- shire that anybody that wears breeches would be accept- able. Do you think the Democratic party of this state is composed entirely of old maids who will jump at the chance of embracing anybody you choose to send? Pos- 42 SELECTIOyS FROM THE WRITINGS OF eibly, brought up as you have been, you think this is a huge joke. But have a care. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," and our New Hampshire Democratic dames, though slow to anger, are savage as cats when their wrath is up, and they '11 be awful mad when they find this out, and they '11 scratch you blind and bald- headed if you ever come this way again. And they ought to. Such a cold-blooded, heartless deceiver as you have proved to be should have neither eyes nor hair. Memorial Day. Forty years have passed since Lincoln delivered at Gettysburg that immortal tribute to the heroes of the Union army, than which nothing more sublime has ever fallen from the lips of mortal, and during that time the nation they saved has every year turned from its usual occupations to do them honor. A new generation has come upon the stage. Most of the veterans have been mustered out or retired from active life to wait the summons to join their comrades in the bivouac of the dead. Orators and poets and other masters of expression, who were able on Memo- rial Day to speak from personal experience or observa- tion of the patriotism and valor, of the sufferings and sacrifices of that awful time, are very few. The War of the Rebellion long since passed into his- tory. It is no longer a recollection even to most of those who today form the processions and conduct the memorial exercises. HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 43 And yet the day was never so generally observed, the graves of the fallen were never more reverently marked with emblems of respect and gratitude, the literary features were never more sincere. Far away as they are from their supreme struggle with treason, the American people have not permitted the day set apart for recognition of their saviors to degenerate into a mere holiday. And it is to be hoped they never will. The Gties of the Dead. The Philadelphia Bulletin says one of the incidental effects of the observance of Memorial Day, which will survive long after the last veteran of the Civil War has been laid in his grave, is the universal practice of dec- orating the graves of the dead. Perhaps it is somewhat of an exaggeration to say that this custom is universal, but it is undeniably true that the Grand Army has by its example brought about a great change for the better in respect to the care of the last resting-places of the dead. Fifty years ago some city cemeteries were decently if not properly cared for and were always suggestive of the respect and affection of the living for their de- parted acquaintances and friends. But in the country burial places were as a rule sadly neglected. Many of them were family lots set apart upon the farms for that purpose, as other lots were used to dump old junk and other waste upon. Some of these were enclosed with unsightly fences, which were seldom in good re- 44 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF pair, and some were left unfenced so that the cattle and horses could keep down the grass that grew upon them. The town burying grounds were not much better. They were often selected because the land in them was nearly worthless. They were fenced with whatever material was cheapest. They were generally overrun with briers and weeds and were without paths or driveways. The stones that marked the graves were often broken and seldom upright. Everything was unattractive, yes, re- pellant, and the term "boneyard'' came to be naturally applied. Now and then a few flowers could be seen upon a recently made grave, showing that someone held in affectionate remembrance the dead; but it was evident that the great majority never visited these graveyards when they were not obliged to. All this has gradually changed. It is still pos- sible to find many country cemeteries that bear evidence of little but neglect and forgetfulness, but most of them are the objects of proper respect for the departed. Most of them are in a general way kept in fair condi- tion at the expense of the towns in which they are located by agents appointed for the purpose, and indi- viduals of all classes have been taught to care for the lots in which their relatives and friends sleep their last sleep. On Memorial Day the floral decorations are not confined to soldiers' graves, but are general, profuse, and beautiful, and this is but the beginning of what continues through the summer. The cemetery of today is no longer shrouded in gloom or peopled with ghosts and goblins. It is no longer neglected and shunned by the living because in itself it is repulsive. It is em- HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 45 blematical of the love, the hope, the associations which make life worth living and the remembrances and con- solations which keep the heart from breaking when death claims our kindred and others dear to us. For this we may thank the Grand Army. Flag Day, June J3, \90L Tomorrow is Flag Day, and it is fitting that every loyal American, at home or abroad, should fling to the breeze the emblem which stands for all the great re- public has accomplished during the making of its mar- velous history, and all it plans and promises and ex- pects to accomplish during the radiant future which it faces. The Stars and Stripes is the most beautiful flag that floats, and it symbolizes more that is noble and en- nobling, more that is cheering and encouraging, than any other. It proclaims not only the triumphs of hero- ism and valor displayed in war, but the victories of peace. It tells not only of glory and honor, but of ma- terial progress and prosperity. It is the banner of a nation consecrated to liberty; to the uplifting of humanity, and to the promotion of all that makes the world a good world to live in. Throw it to the breeze tomorrow and let it tell to all its won- drous and inspiring story. 46 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF The Glorious Fourth. July 4, 1901. The ever glorious Fourth of July was never more glorious than this year, for the nation whose birthday it is was never before so strong, so prosperous, so united, and so respected. It should be and it will be celebrated at home and abroad by all who own allegiance to the stars and stripes and are at heart loyal to the govern- ment they symbolize. From the youth whose patriotic enthusiasm finds expression in blaze and noise, to the thoughtful citizen and honest statesman, whose devo- tion to the principles upon which in 1776 the fathers of the republic founded the nation directs them to the study of the immortal Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. All true Americans will observe the day and in such observance gather strength which, in peace and in war, as the occasion may require, will be at the service of the country. Differ as we may as to policies and as to methods, tomorrow we shall be one as to principles, and sharers in the glory and greatness of the United States. HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 47 An Old-Time Thanksgiving, She was fifty-nine years old. She was well propor- tioned, erect, and comely. Her silky white hair lay in waves above a face that had lost the flush of girlhood, but had never been furrowed by remorse or deep re- grets, and was rich in the expression of kindness, se- renity, and intellectual strength. She was mistress of the New Hampshire home to which her husband took her when he married her forty years before, and which he acquired by agreeing to pay the other nine children of his father two hundred dollars each, and providing for the parents while they lived. The farm was of broad acreage, hilly and rocky, but when skillfully and laboriously cultivated, productive. The house was square, two-storied, and connected by an L with the shed and an immense barn, which evi- denced the value of the farm and the thrift of its own- ers. There was a front room, which was never opened except when there was company; a dining-room, twenty- five feet long, which was also the sitting-room and kitchen, except in summer, when the cooking was done in the L; a spacious pantry, and eight bedrooms. In the center was a chimney, in which were fashioned four fireplaces, so large that one could stand in them and see the heavens above, and a brick oven eight feet by four. She was the mother of nine children, and all but Walter, who was to have the farm when his parents 48 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITING'S OF could no longer carry it on, had left her. One had died. John was a lawyer in New York; Mary married the village doctor; Susan was a teacher in Massachu- setts; Henry was superintendent of a railroad; Nathan was a member of a Boston dry goods firm, George had just graduated from college, and Rebecca was the wife of a Connecticut farmer. The head of the family was strong, sinewy, and steady-going, a worker who was always ready to hold the plow or drive; a manager whose judgment was seldom at fault; a close calculator who could not be mean or dishonest if he tried; a deacon who lived his religion seven days in the week; a large taxpayer who paid his share without grumbling; a town officer who did public business as he did his own; a man who never fretted nor fumed; a faithful and tender husband and a devoted father, who loved his children, and, from the day they were born, labored to give them better ad- vantages than he had; a good citizen who voted con- scientiously, and a good neighbor who was always ready to help; a representative New England farmer in the iir*t half of the last century. The hired girl was Eliza and the hired man was Philip, who lived with his wife and children in another house on the farm. Both of these had been in the employ of the deacon twenty-five years, and were as much interested in the land, the buildings, and the stock as they would have been if they had owned every dollar's worth, and the boys and girls who had grown up on the place were as much the objects of their affec- tion and pride as if they were their own. They worked HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 49 for small wages, but they never knew what it was to want, and lived contentedly in the knowledge that they would always be cared for. Besides, they had money at interest, as much as $150 each. What more did they want ? It was Thanksgiving morning in 1855, and the ma- tron stood in front of the fireplace looking up and down over the two long tables so placed as to make one, which was covered with broad, homemade, spotless white linen that her mother had given her when she began house- keeping, and she said to Eliza: "Let's see! Father will sit at the head and I at the foot, that 's two, and John and his wife and boy will be five, and Mary and the doc- tor and his sister will be eight, and Susan and her friend ten, and Henry and his wife if she is able to come twelve, and Nathan and his wife and the twins, sixteen, and George and his girl, eighteen, and Eebecca and her girl in the high chair, twenty, Walter and his wife, and Tommy and Molly, twenty-three, and you, twenty-four, and the three babies their mothers can hold. Yes; it will be right to set the table for twenty- four, for Philip is at his daughter's and will not be here." Later on, when the stage rolled in, those who had not come the day before arrived, and they were all there. The china closet and the brick oven and the cook stove and the pantry gave up their treasures, and the table was set. She was a very proud and happy mother. They were her children. She had planned and worked for them nearly forty years from daylight until nearly midnight. She had cooked their food, 50 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF made and mended their clothes, nursed them when they were sick, overseen their play, taught them to work, directed their schooling and home training, prac- ticed hard economies to give them an education, with- out a thought that she was carrying a heavy burden or making extraordinary sacrifices for them; but she was so glad that they had "turned out well," and that they came home every Thanksgiving when it was not ar- ranged that she and they should spend the day at one of their homes. In front of the father's chair were two turkeys, long, broad, and deep, wreathed in parsley, browned in a hue that no painter can paint, upholstered in fatness, con- cealing in their depths great masses of the mysterious lusciousness known as "dressing," the secrets of which no cook except a farmer's wife ever mastered, and ap- parently swelling with pride because they were selected from the flock to grace this occasion, instead of being sent to the city to be spoiled in roasting and fed out to boarders; and oceans of matchless gravy and hillocks of cranberry sauce and jelly, and two cavernous pies in which four prize chickens, dismembered and seasoned and saturated, were hidden by far-reaching and tempt- ing crusts; potatoes and beets and parsnips and squashes and onions and cauliflowers and pickles and preserves; on a side table, within easy reach, mince pies and apple pies and squash pies and berry pies and plum puddings; after that, coffee and tea and blackberry wine and sweet cider and apples and pears and cheese and cookies. There was no menu, no aproned waiters, and no need of any, for they could all see what they wanted, and father HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 51 and mother served it. There was a blessing, short, sin- cere, and devout: "Heavenly Father, make us duly grateful for all the good things we have, and do not let us neglect the duty we owe to those who are not so fortunate." That was all the deacon said. And they ate and drank, and drank and ate as if it were the one feast of their lives, the one occasion on earth where it was their duty to have insatiable appetites, as if they could only show their appreciation and regard for a kind father and good and tender mother by devouring at one sitting all the fruits of her marvelous skill and tireless industry which was spread before them. And she was so contented and happy! They stayed all night, and in the evening all, except George and his girl, who went to the dance at the town hall, gathered about the fireplace, where the flames rushed skyward through the chimney from the maple logs as if to tell the country round about what a grand Thanksgiving the family was having, and they talked of old times and times to come, of the people they used to know, of those who had died and those who had lived and done well, and those who had lived but failed, and of themselves and their children, and business and plans and prospects, and what they could do for father and mother, who wanted nothing and wished for noth- ing that was not theirs that night. The next day most of them departed for their homes, to throw themselves again into the whirl of business, to work and wrestle and worry in their endeavor to accumulate money, make reputations and achieve success in life. It was a typical Thanksgiving, such as took place 52 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF annually in hundreds of the old New England home- forty years ago, and is to be seen now in every neigh- borhood in that section where the traditions, theories of life, aspirations, and aims of the Puritans survive, and the Yankees have not committed race suicide. What did it mean? To what did it testify? First, gratitude to God for the harvest, and the harvest, be it considered, was to these people everything material. With it they lacked next to nothing. When he had gathered his crops and done his butchering, the suc- cessful New England farmer of half a century ago was the most independent character on earth. He was surrounded by plenty, and peace brooded over him and his. He had plenty of hay and grain, plenty of beef, pork, lamb, and poultry; plenty of butter and cheese; plenty of eggs, fruit, and vegetables. He had wool, which his family could weave into clothing and bed- ding; calfskins and cowhides, which he could have tanned for his boots and shoes. He had plenty of cider and wine, and wood without limit. He could live through the winter without buying anything. A few groceries were all he did buy, and these were paid for from the proceeds of his products, as were his light taxes, his church subscriptions and his blacksmith bill. He traveled with his own team. He generally paid what help he employed in grain and meat. The couple whose Thanksgiving I have described did not handle in a year as much money as it cost their son John to run his house a week, but they brought up eight sons and daughters, kept them comfortably clothed and well fed, gave them an education, and sent them out 11ENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 53 into the world, equipped for its battles in an age of unrest, struggle and strife, which they were able to do because their husbandry did not fail of its rewards. Appreciation of the importance of the crops and will- ingness to credit Divine Providence with them were the fundamental reasons for the universal observance of the Day of Thanksgiving and Praise, which the Puritan fathers instituted and their descendants have continued, with some lapses from the religious exercises, to this day. It was a homecoming, and in that lay the charm which fastened it in the hearts of the fathers and moth- ers who owned the old homesteads, and the sons and daughters who had sought in other fields wider oppor- tunities and were generally scattered far and wide. It was a harvest festival, where the prosperous and happy shared with the poor and distressed. "Teach us not to forget those who are not as fortunate as we," was the prayer, and it was answered before it was uttered. However little of the good things of earth was in the possession of some people, generally on Thanksgiving Day they were bountifully provided for. On that day, if on no other, Charity went hand in hand with Plenty, and no one was allowed to feel that he was forgotten or forsaken. It brought into play the basic principles and best impulses of a race of men and women whose superiors in all that makes for the uplifting of humanity, the progress of the world and the strength and permanency of nations have never been known. They were not strenuous. There was nothing spectacular in their re- 54 SFLFCTIOXS FROM THE WRITIXGS OF Union. Theirs was not a flambeau patriotism. They did not exhaust themselves in trying to abolish the Primal Curse or amend the Ten Commandments. They did not scheme to get rich quick. They were, by the standard of today, slow folks. But they were true to their God, their country, their families and themselves. They feared God and kept his commandments, includ- ing that to multiply and replenish the earth. They were ready to fight without uniform and with their own muskets, as they did at Concord and Bunker Hill. They were industrious beyond anything within the con- ception of the present age. They never thought the world owed them a living unless they earned it. They felt it was their duty to earn and have enough and to spare. They were strong physically and mentally; dys- pepsia, appendicitis, and microbes were discovered after their day. They did their own thinking and needed no society to resolve what they should say and no union to tell them when to work. They had no vanity, but they stood erect before kings. There was among them no aristocracy of birth, wealth or position. Their center of influence and accomplishments was the family, their altar the hearthstone. Their objects of veneration on earth were the father and mother. Their temples were the church, the schoolhouse, and the townhouse. They were good to themselves and kind to their neigh- bors. They were hard-working, worldly-wise and frugal, prudent, and provident, and, therefore, prosperous. All these qualities and others corresponding and sup- porting went to make up the character of the early set- tlers of New England and found expression in their an- HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 55 nual feast. Others had Fourth of July, Christmas and New Year's, but only the thoroughbred Yankee had genuine Thanksgiving in those times or has it now, except where the Yankee spirit has carried and domi- nates it. Christmas. Home, Mother, Christmas! Than these, language contains no words sweeter, richer in meaning, more en- during, more beyond human power to change for the better, and today Christmas includes the other two. Who would abolish Christmas if he could? Who could if he would? Neither pope nor president nor prince nor other potentate, neither pauper nor millionaire, neither slave nor master, neither man nor woman nor child in all Christendom. For it is too deeply rooted in the veneration, the affections, and the respect of mankind; too closely interwoven with the expectancies, the delightful surprises and the grateful remembrances of humanity; too richly wreathed in the charming fictions and the sacred mysteries of life; too heavily freighted with the joys of earth and the hopes of heaven. A Merry Christmas goodness, generosity, happiness! The blessings of giving! The blessings of receiving! What more is there to be asked for, prayed for, wished for? The Christmas greeting! Was ever one more cheering? The Christmas tree! Was ever one so fruit- ful? The Christmas stocking! Was ever fabric woven 6o SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF for so good a purpose? Santa Claus! Has all the im- agery of the ages created a personage so munificent? One cannot easily help being good and happy on Christmas. It is the fashion. It is contagious, epi- demic. A Merry Christmas to everybody! Dennis and the Other. Dennis Cooney, an old resident of Hartford, died last week and was decently buried. Whoever preached his funeral sermon could have said of him, without exag- geration, "He was honest, industrious, sober, temper- ate, faithful, law-abiding, frugal, thrifty, and, from his standpoint in life, successful. He was a stranger to all the common vices. He never used liquor nor tobacco. He never gambled. He squandered no money on fine raiment. He paid his taxes and church dues. He never took anything that did not belong to him. He had nothing that he did not earn, and he left a fortune of seventeen thousand dollars. How did he get it? For whom did he save it? He was a day laborer. He never got more than one dollar and fifty cents a day, and generally less than that. He worked from sun to sun. He went barefooted to save his shoes. He walked to save car fares. He never married and lived alone, to save expense. His one ob- ject in life was to save. His one enjoyment was in get- ting and hoarding. He was an honest miser, who did nothing he had not a legal right to do, and the seven- teen thousand dollars he left was indisputably his. HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 57 As soon as he left it his distant relatives began to wrangle over its distribution. They were strangers to him while he was on earth, but they got busy about his strong box before he was under ground, and with four law firms to help them have begun a contest, which will probably continue until there is nothing left for the heirs. The fight will be a good thing for the lawyers ; it will serve the uncles, cousins, and aunts right, and it will not hurt Dennis a bit. But if he could look down, or up, and see what is going on in Hartford, would n't or would he say, "What a fool was I to live on next to nothing, to slave from morning till night, to save and hoard every penny I earned, for the lawyers and other liars that 's scrapping for it now." When the coals are all raked up and the books are balanced, what 's the good of being a miser anyhow? A different man died in Hartford and in a hundred other cities last week. The parson who preached his funeral sermon felt he was skating on thin ice and skipped across very lightly. He made no remarks about industry, frugality or economy, for the departed was a prodigal, a spendthrift, who inherited seventeen thou- sand dollars, more or less, and died bankrupt, leaving nothing for distant relatives or the lawyers to quarrel over and divide, and there was not much to be said in his favor except that he was whole-souled, free, and easy. Which would you rather be, dead, Dennis or the bankrupt? Neither! "In medio tutissimus ibis." Sail in the middle course. Avoid extremes. Live within your means. Live up to your means. Don't be miserly. 58 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF Don't be mean. Don't rob yourself of tbe good things of earth which you can afford in order to leave some- thing for those who care nothing for you and who wait for your estate as jackals wait for the carcass. Don't live in affluence and die in poverty. Don't be Dennis and don't be the other. The "Jiners." She was about forty-five years old, well dressed, had black hair, rather thin and tinged with gray, and eyes ill which gleamed the fires of a determination not to be easily balked. She walked into Major Huse's office, in Patten's block, and requested a private interview, and, having obtained it, and satisfied herself that the law students were not listening at the keyhole, said slowly, solemnly, and impressively, "I want a divorce." "What for? I supposed you had one of the best of husbands," said the major. "I suppose that 's what everybody thinks, but if they knew what I 've suffered in ten years they 'd wonder I had n't scalded him long ago. I ought to, but for the sake of the young ones I 've borne it and said nothing. I 've told him, though, what he might depend on, and now the time 's come I won't stand it, young ones or no young ones, I '11 have a divorce, and if the neighbors want to blab themselves hoarse about it they may, for I won't stand it another day." "But what \s the matter? Don't your husband pro- vide for you? Is n't he true to you? Don't he treat you kindly?" pursued the lawyer. HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 59 "We get victuals enough, and I don't know but he 'a as true and kind as men in general; and he's never knocked none of us down. I wish he had, then I 'd get him into jail and know where he was nights," retorted the woman. "Then what's your complaint against him?" "Well, if you must know, he 's one of them plaguy jiners." "A what?" "A jiner. One of the pesky fools that 's always jining something. There can't anything come along that 's dark and sly and hidden but he '11 jine it. If anybody should get up a society to burn his house down he 'd jine it just as soon as he could get in, and if they had to pay to get in he 'd go all the suddener. We had n't been married more 'n two months before he jined the Know Nothins. We lived on a farm then, and every Saturday night he 'd come tearin' in before supper and grab a fistful of nut cakes and go off gnaw- in' 'em, and that 's the last I 'd see of him till mornin'. And every other night he 'd roll and tumble in his sleep, and holler Tut none but Americans on guard, George Washington!' and rainy days he 'd go out in the corn barn and jab at a picture of the pope with an old bagnet that was there. I ought to have put my foot down then, but he fooled me so with his lies about the pope's coming to make all the Yankee girls marry Irish- men, and to eat up all the babies that was n't born with a cross on their foreheads, that I let him go on and kinder encouraged him in it. Then he jined the Ma- sons. P'raps you know what them be, but I don't, "cept 60 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITIXGS OF they think they 're the same kind of critters that built Solomon's temple and took care of his concubines; and of all the darned nonsense and gab about worshipful masters, and squares and compasses, and sich like, that we had in the house for the next six months, you never see the beat. And he 's never outgrowed it, nuther. What do you think of a man, square, that '11 dres9 his- self in a white apron, 'bout big enuff for a monkey's bib, and go marching up and down, making motions and talking the foolishest lingo at a picture of George Washington in a green jacket, and a truss on his stom- ach? Ain't he a loonytick? Well, that 's my Sam, and I 've stood it long as I 'm goin' to. "The next lunge the fool made was into the Odd Fellers. I made it warm for him when he came home and he told me he 'd jined them; but he kinder pacified me by telling that they had a sort of branch show that took women, and he 'd get me in as soon as he found out how to do it. Well, one night he come home and said I 'd been proposed and somebody had blackballed me. Did it hisself, of course. Did n't want me round knowing to his going on. Of course he did n't, and I told him so. "Then he jined the Sons of Malta. Did n't say noth- ing to me about it, but sneaked off one night, pertendin' he 'd got to set up with a sick Odd Feller; and I 'd never found it out only he come home lookin' like a man that had been through a thrashin' machine, and I would n't do a thing for him till he owned up. And so it 's gone from bad to wus, and from wus to wusser, jinin' this and that and t' other till he 's Worshipful HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 61 Minister of the Masons, the Goddess of Hope of the Odd Fellers, and Sword-Swallerer of the Finnagans, and Virgin Cereus of the Grange, and Grand Mogul of the Sons of Indolence, and Two-Edged Tomahawk of the United Order of Black Men, and the Tale-Bearer of the Merciful Mannikins, and Skipper of the Guild of Catherine Columbus, and Big Wizard of the Arabian Nights, and Pledge-Passer of the Reform Club, and Chief Bugler of the Irish Machinists, and Purse Keeper of the Order of the Canadian Conscience, and Double- Barreled Dictator of the Knights of the Brass Circles, and Standard-Bearer of the Royal Archangels, and Sub- lime Porte of the Union League, and Chambermaid of the Celestial Cherubs, and Puissant Potentate of the Petrified Pig-Stickers, and the Lord only knows what else. I 've borne it and borne it, hopin' he 'd get 'em all jined after awhile; but 't ain't no use; and when he come home last night and told me he 'd got into a new one and had been made Grand Guide of the Nights of Horror, I just told him I 'd quit; and I will." Here the major interrupted, saying: "Well, your husband is pretty well initiated, that 's a fact; but the court will hardly call that good cause for a divorce. The most of the societies you mention are composed of honorable men, and have excellent rep- utations. Many of them, though called lodges, are re- lief associations and mutual insurance companies, which, if your husband should die, would take care of you and which would not see 3 T ou or him suffer if you were sick." "See me suffer when he's sick! Take care of me C2 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF when I 'm dead! Well, I guess not; I can take care of myself when he 's dead; and, if I can't, I can get another. There 'a plenty of 'em. And they need n't bother themselves when I 'm sick, either. If I want to be sick and suffer, it's none of their business; espe- cially after all the sufferin' I 've had when I ain't sick because of their carryn's on. And you need n't try and make me believe it 's all right, either. I know what it is to live with a man that jines so many lodges that he don't never lodge at home, and that signs his name, 'Yours truly, Sam Smith, M. M., I. 0. 0. F., K. 0. B., K. 0. P., P. of H., B. A. H., I. P., K. of X., N. of C, L. E. T., H. E. R., R. R. I. P., X. Y. Z./ etc." "Oh, that 's a harmless amusement," remarked Mr. Huse. She looked him square in the eye and said, "I do be- lieve you 're a jiner yourself." He admitted that he was to a certain extent, and she rose and said, "I would n't have thought it. A man like you, chairman of a Sabbath school and superintendent of the Republicans! It's enough to make a woman take pisen. But I don't want anything of you. I want a lawyer that don't belong to nobody nor nothin'." And she bolted out of the office and inquired where Captain Patten kept. HEyitY MARCUS PUTNEY. 63 What Do We Work For? In almost every occupation there are two classes of workers, those who work for themselves and those who work for others. In one sense we are all of us doing both, for in every honorable department of industry, while our work is bringing to us its just reward, it is also doing good to the community. Unless we should be cast on a desert island, like Robinson Crusoe, this must be the case, whether we intend it or not. Yet as the first of these results usually obtains a much stronger hold upon us than the latter, it follows there is often a very marked difference in the quality and amount of labor undertaken at our own risk of success and that which we do for another, who gives a certain stipend in return. A mechanic, for example, opens up a small shop as a carpenter or blacksmith or shoemaker. Pres- ently his business increases and he hires another man to help him at a regular price per week. In like man- ner the lawyer must obtain a clerk, the writer an aman- uensis, the housekeeper a cook. From these simple beginnings up to the complicated business of the large merchant, or manufacturer, or agriculturist, or other organized industry, the same discrimination must ex- ist. A few run risks and take profits; a much larger number sell their labor for a definite sum. Both are equally necessary for the efficient conduct of most of the occupations of life. There are, it is true, a few 64 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF solitary workers the artist, the author, and others who may prefer to labor in retirement, but the large major- ity belong either to the class of employer or employed. We must admit that one of the former class has an incentive to strenuous effort that is lacking to one of the latter. He knows that success or failure in the enter- prise means personal success or failure to himself, while to the other it carries no such vital result. He who is working for himself knows that every effort he makes tells directly upon his own prosperity, while to him who is working for others, at a stated amount, it may sometimes seem for his own interest to give as little labor as possible for what he receives. The wholesale buyer and the retail customer certainly adopt this plan in regard to the money they pay out. Yet he who re- gards his labor simply in this light will generally be disappointed. He may plead that he keeps within the line of strict justice, as did a young man the other day, who, being sent by his employer on a business er- rand to a distant town, found, when within a very short distance of his destination, that he could not perforin the errand and return home again exactly by five o'clock, the hour of closing, so stopped at the next station and returned to the office in time to leave off work! It hardly needs to be said that as such ideas of justice formed his habitual standard they did not render him sufficiently valuable to be retained, and he is now seek- ing for another position. Indeed, no real justice can exist when personal interest is the only consideration. If we care only for the wages or the salary and nothing for the results of our labor, we are thereby incapaci- HEXRY MARCUS PUTXEY. 65 tated from forming any just idea of what we owe to others. And one who thus reasons and acts will never gain more than a mere temporary success, for the value of his work will be measured by very different stand- ards by those who pay for it. If we examine the rec- ords of those who have risen from small beginnings to important posts we shall find that they took no such narrow views and drove no such hard and fast bargains when they disposed of their labor, but rather strove to make themselves as valuable as possible to those who employed them. Were there no other object in life than self interest, even it would best thrive on a broad and generous basis when laboring for others. It is, however, not merely from policy that we would urge a certain liberality in labor upon those who work for others. It will bear still richer fruit than personal prosperity if induced by higher motives. No one can rise to any high level of character who takes no pride in his work. This is something quite apart from the relation he bears to the one for whom he labors. If, besides the money it brings him and the prospect of promotion, and even the justice of the contract itself, he also longs for excellence; if he take delight in its solidity or beauty, in its usefulness or permanence, in its superiority as a w T hole or the perfection of its details, in the good it may do and the influence it may exert, he is a higher type of character and a far more valuable factor in the welfare of the world. Adam Bede, that admirable carpenter of George Eliot's creation, says: "I can't abide to see men throw away their tools i' that way the minute the clock begins to strike, as if 66 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF they took no pleasure i' their work and were afraid of doing a stroke too much." Were all our master builders and mechanics like Adam, how strong and solid would our houses be! How safe and sanitary would be the plumbing, how firm the masonry! If all our manufactures were conducted in this spirit, how pure would be our household supplies, how trustworthy our fabrics, how reliable our posses- sions of every kind! If such motives governed the leaders and statesmen of our land, what a marvelous change would take place in our entire social and polit- ical condition! Trust would replace suspicion, purity would replace corruption, the good of the community and the good of the individual would together be in- creased a hundredfold. Although we can look for no such sudden or radical change in our character as a people, though we know that moral progress has too many adverse factors to contend with to be rapid in its movement, yet we also know that each individual can do his share towards accelerating it. In his own department of industry, whether of head or hand, whether simple or complex, he can cultivate excellence quite apart from the effect it may have upon his own interest. He can nourish a pride in his own work, both in its matter and its form, in its intrinsic value and in its wide results on human welfare. He can ponder on the need the community has of his work, and try to supply that need in the best and fullest manner. Such thoughts, cherished and pur- sued, will suggest many methods of improvement and teach many lessons of patient and unflinching effort. HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 67 These higher motives do not impose any disastrous self sacrifice nor any loss of personal rights. Everywhere the laborer is worthy of his hire, and should require and receive it. His duty to himself and his family cannot be performed without it. But that secured, let him put his heart and soul into his work; let him never be satisfied with less than his best efEorts; let him make it a connecting link between himself and the commu- nity, that may bear to them comfort, or safety, or beauty, or joy, or help something, at least, that shall make the world better and happier that he has lived and labored in it. The Boy Finds His Father. "Put's boy" was a creation of the writer's Imagination, and most of his amusing observations and doings were chronicled in Mr. Put- ney's reports of the New Hampshire Legislature, under the caption "Notes from the Capital." These reports attained wide distinction, and "Put's boy" became a great source of entertainment. His last appearance was in connection with a visit Mr. Putney made to Wash- ington. Pokchmouth, Monday Night. To the Buro: I 've got the old man, got him foul. I came down here to find him. You know how much I have wanted to find my long-lost father, and how I have hunted after him all these years. I always wanted a father ever since I got so big one could n't boss me round, be- cause I thought may be he might have a lot of money he would leave to some orphan as3 r lum, and I wanted to be that asylum. There is n't an asylum anywhere 8 SELECTIONS FROM THE VTKITJXGS OF that wants to be endowed more than I do, and it would be a burning shame to have some rich old covey go and make his will and give his scrip to strange orphans, when his own child had to earn his own living telling the truth and running errands for the bureau. Telling the truth is nice business, but it 's mighty up-hill work at Concord, and the salary don't half pay for the strain on a boy's nerves. So I said, I '11 find my dad and get endowed, and I 've hunted for him among all the rich and high-toned fellows I have met. Once I went to a medium and asked her where the old man was, and she went to sleep and said she could see him swinging from a tree out in Nebraska. I thought that was a lie. But I did n't get ahead any with the hunt and had about given it up, when Sunday I was reading in Frank Miller's Weekly what he said about the state printing, and I thought right off, that 's the same voice that said, "Feed him on water, and don't give him that full strength, for I want him to grow up a temperance man. He is of noble blood and must not disgrace the family name," when I was left at a baby farm in Boston. So I came down, and, sure enough, it 's he. Yes, it 's he. But oh how the old man has changed! I had a good deal of trouble to make him own me. He did n't fold me to his bosom and say he was glad to see how I 'd grown up to be like him and taken up the fight against tea and tobacco. Not much! But he said, "You infernal villin, you are the scamp that poked fun at me at Concord the other day. Yes, at me, a man who has been for seventeen times a candidate for office, mostly without solicitation on his part." HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 69 Oh! but he was raving, and they told me he had been out of his head ever since he left Concord. I thought may be I could soothe him, and said, "Dad, don't you know your beautiful boy?" but this only made him worse, and he went on moaning, "Petered out, petered out. Only five votes, and one of these Ubicle Wiggins." But by and by he had what the doctor called a lucid interval, and then he owned me some, and said, "Yes, I 'm your long-lost parent. There was a time when nothing would have made me acknowledge this, but that time has passed. To a man in my frame of mind nothing is humiliating. The country has gone to the dogs. Men, women, and children drink tea as a bever- age; sweet cider is sucked through straws as of old, and cigars are openly sold in every village. I have fought the good fight and lost. I am played out. Come on, I will own you. Go and gather in all your brothers and sisters and I will acknowledge them." So I found my father. It is n't much of a find. He don't pan out what I expected, and he is n't what any- body who knows me would have expected. But I 've got him; and if he behaves himself I shall stay with him; if he don't I shall have to marry a father. HOOSEAE MILLER. 70 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITIXOS OF The Boy's Return. Much to our surprise, we found the boy here when we returned. He sat composedly in the bureau, with his feet on the table and his eyes closed, debating with himself, as he afterwards confessed, whether Jim French would find it out if he appropriated about fifty Havana cigars, which French left in his room, and supplied their places with short sixes. "Halloo! Where did you come from? Thought you were with your father in Portsmouth." "Well, I was, but I 've shook him." "Shook him! What do you mean by that?" "Oh, he and I have dissolved. I told him he or I had got to leave. He would n't, and, rather than have a fuss in the family, I came." "He ought to be thankful to be rid of such a grace- less scamp." "I ain't to blame. I hope I know what 's a boy's duty to his father that left him in an orphan asylum when he was a baby, and I 'd been glad to have staid with the old man till he died, but a boy that 's got a reputa- tion to keep can't stand everything. He 's got to re- spect hisself or he 's a gone goose." "But what 's the trouble with him?" "Took to strong drink. He did it very sudden, but when he went he went in all over, like a mittened girl when she drowns herself." EEXRY MARCUS PUTXEY. 71 "You don't mean to say that Miller 's taken to strong drink?" "That 's what I said, and what I 6aid I don't take back unless the man I said it to is bigger than me. Perhaps it would n't be strong drink for most folks, but it 's too stout for him." "What does he drink?" "Milk and water four parts water and one part milk." "You see he was terribly down in the mouth, as I wrote you, and he thought a little something stimulating would kind of cheer him up. So I mixed it, eight spoonfuls of water and two of milk, skimmed at that. He only drank one swallow, but it went straight to his head, and he 's been on a tear ever since. We got him tied to the bedpost one morning, and I read all the St. Louis platform and Tilden's letter to him, and the hired girl came in on the chorus and yelled, 'Keform is necessary' in her best style, but it was no use. Then we had to cheat him; gave him white lead and water, lime and water, and everything else we could think of that looks like watered milk, and if we could have kept the milk cart away we might have brought him out; but he had got into such a state that a man's going up the back street with a milk-can set him to see snakes and bugs and all that sort of thing, and we gave it up. It 's awful, and I 'd lie about it and say he was sick, if it want for getting into the habit, but of course I could n't stay there and lose my character. So I left and here am I. Had to walk up. I told him at the depot that the legislature had passed Adam's railroad 72 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRIT1X0S OF bill that common folks should pay three cents a mile, but eminent persons should ride free, and I wanted a pass as an eminent; but he could n't see it, and now I want to post him, so he won't be coming round here and trying to play the prodigal calf; and then he 's ready for business. "You will please print this till forbid, and charge the bill to him: "Anybody Who Cares About It. "Section 1. Whereas, The old man has turned out to be a bad egg, and I've shook him; therefore take notice that he sha' n't get any of my earnings, and any- body who sells him milk and other wet groceries on tick does it at his own expense. "Sect. 2. 'Nothing in this act shall be took to mean that if he dies and leaves property it ain't mine.' "Sect. 3. If the People's lookout man twits me about my parents, I '11 lick him. "Sect. 4. Section three of this act shall take effect on his passage; the other sections was in force yesterday. "PUT'S BOY (nee Miller). "Witness: Josie Wiooin. "P. S. Josie is my adopted sister." HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 73 The Boy's Life in Washington. No. I. I never saw a worse liar than the little darkey that blacked boots on the train we came on. It was dark when we left Boston, and Joe, who wanted to know about the train, the travel on it and the route, gave the black rascal ten cents to tell us. He said the train was made up of eight palace cars, that they were so nice that near Baltimore the company had built a house over the track to keep the dew off of them, and that when we got down South the air would be so thick with the scent of peach blossoms that it would prob- ably make me sick, and so on. We believed it, but when we looked there was only a freight car, a baggage car, and one parlor car on the train, and these had n't any Miller platforms. The track near Baltimore runs through a wet, black tunnel, and the weather grew colder and nastier and the snow deeper every hour till we got here. Joe thinks the chap might have thought we were rebels, and that if he had known we were Eepublicans and against mak- ing him a cattle, he would n't have lied so, but I believe he did it on purpose. There are one hundred and sixty thousand folks liv- ing in Washington, and all but fourteen of them are paupers, but it don't cost anything to support them. They live on the government. > 74 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF As near as I can calculate, they have put two hundred and thirty-seven millions of our money into buildings and plaster of Paris images here, but I don't mind it; there will be less for my heirs to quarrel over when I 'm gone. That story about this town 's being named for a man who could n't tell a lie is false. There was n't any such man ever here, and the yarn was got up to cheat small boys with. Young friends, if you ever want to come to congress don't be fooled into believing that kind of stories. The Smithsonian Institute is where they keep seven hundred million things, which they call curiosities. Every strange thing you ever heard of, and a good many things you never dreamed of, are there. The strangest thing I 6aw was a pair of ears eleven feet and four inches long. On the tin tag which they are tied to it says: "Earum Jackassum Humanum." These ears were cut from the head of a sailor by order of her British majesty, because he did n't mind his own business. He was afterwards the local editor of a Dem- ocratic paper, and a prominent ward five politician in Manchester, N. H. HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 75 Put's Boy's Letter from Washington. No* 2. Washington, D. C, December 23, 1885. Old Gent: I heven't writ you for a long spel. Why should I? Why should enybody waste postage stamps writin' to thare dads and thare gurls and other folks when they don't want to borrer muney nor git sur- tifkits to thare moral karacter nur nothin' els that 's valubel? That ain't bisnes, and it ain't politercal ekon- ermy, and it ain't reform, and it ain't Demerkratic, not by a long shot. It 's waste; it 's extra vagans; it 's the rankest kind of spendthrifty; it 's down rite Kepublik- anism, which hain't got no plan in a administration that 's krawlin' bak to Jeffersonian simpleness as fast as it ken go. I 've ben reedin' the report of the postmaster gin- eral, and it brung tears to my ise. Think what a state of debauchery & riotin' it reveals. Think of the millions it shoze was wasted in postag stamps last yere, & most of 'em yoused on luv leters and friendly epistols and dunin' leters that did n't amount to shuks! Think of the trouble that 's corsed by leters; how mis- rybel you be when sum one rites you that yure ant is ded without levin' you a sent, or your best girl has been scooped fer steelin', or yure wif has give birth to trip- lets that 's doin' well. Forty millions a yere fr postag stamps & half uv it pade by the workin' classes. Who wonders that times is hard? that strong men go about 76 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF the stretes cryin' for beer and smal boys is driv to steelin' sigarets? And all this mischief is the fruits of the Republikan policy! When the Demerkrats was fired out in sixty thare want no such rekord as this behind 'em. They did n't enkuridge peeple to spend thare time writin' leters and waste thare substance on postag stamps. Bet yu're life they didn't! But when the republikans ketched on with thare blab about educating the mases and thare nonsense about enlitenin the peeple with thare postal cars & thare letur carriers and thare chepe postag & all thare uther insentivs to vise and krime; when they begun to teche the doktrin that a nigger mite rite al the leters he wanted too, and that the white man who kuld n't rite wan't quite so good as a nigger who could, foks jist went recles and bloed thare ernins into postag. Think of it, old man, & wep, for you 're wun of the guilty wons. But I 'm wanderin'. It harrers up my hart so to see our beluved kountry bledin' at every pore, and bein* robed of its recources bi the post-offis vampires, that my feelin's run awa with me. To resoom! Don't let enny feller that I oe think this menes I 've resoomed payment, for I ain't that kind of a bank, & I skorn to deseive a man that 's trusted me but to return, to get back to whare I started, that 's what I mene. I have n't writ you fer a long spel, becos I did n't want nothin' of you & I don't want you to get nothin' of me. Probly you don't kno whare I be. Mebbe you don't kare. But if you kum to Washington & run HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 77 your ey along Pennsylvania avenue, you '11 see a sine that reads thus: HOOSEAR HIGGINS and Mind Readers and That's me, or the first end of it is, & the rest is Higgins, the appointment klerk, known in all reform eurkles, & in every farro bank in Baltimore. Our charge varies accordin' to the resources & softnes of the kus- tomer. I was developed into a mind reder in this way: When I cum on here, after the trustees of the Agricultural Collidge at Hanover voted I was too brite to be a pro- fesor in that institushun, I was n't exatly rolin in welth, least wise I wasn't mistook 'for Vanderbilt on the stretes, nor in the banks, & the hotel keepers would n't hev me enny. I told 'em I was a statesman watin to be caled to a important & lucrytiv offis, but they sed that kind of ded beets was the wurst thare was, & it was no go; ditto in the barrooms and every whare. So I hed to do sumthin', and as I was egeing up to a New Hampshire man to ask him to sho' me the way to the fre lunch kounter whare he boarded, I herd him say, "I 'd giv ten dolars to know jest what Al. Sulloway thinks about this bisnes." "And what 's your name," sed I, turning sharp at him. "Daniel Harriman," sed he. "And what offis do you want," sed I. "I want to be postal clerk on the Northern raleroad, and I 've got tu be or thare won't be no more Democrat representa- tives from our toun," sed he. "Wei," sed I, "If you mene bisnes and want to giv ten dolars to kno' jist what Al. Sulloway thinks about you, hand over yure stuf 73 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITMQS OF and I '1 give it to you strate, for I slept over Al. in the car comin' on last nite and he kept the passengers wild meditatin' over yure case. All nite long he kept gronin' and calm' yure name, & before mornin' he giv himself awa' kompletely." Wei, I got that ten dolars & if he did n't get his munney's worth of lys dun up in the hiest stile of the art I ain't no good. He 's now watein' on a farm in Danbury for the blosoms of Al's mind to bare frute, but that ain't mi hunt. I wish him wel, fur he opened up to me al the gloryous possibilities of a mind reder in these das when nobody taks stok in what yu say and every body wants a expurt to dig into yure mind & se how much you 're lyin. The next day I met Higgins & unfolded mi plan fur openin' a mind reder's shop, & falin into transes, & furnishing infurmation to offis-sekurs. He sed: "Wel, I like yure style; I '1 get my close cut by yure mesure; I '1 hev yu set fur my fotograf ; but who are yu and whared you cum from?" I sed, "Hig, I 'm the sole survivor of a family of ate bootyful boys that per- ished electin' Cleveland. Three went from the St. John side show, to the inebryates' home, two is in jale for ilegal votin', one was hooted from the kountry fur marchin' with the Harrington Guards of Manchester, & one was elected to the New Hampshire Legislature." "Yes, but what did yu do?" sed Higgins. "I gunned the rest. I dyed for my kountry by proxy. Thare aint nothin mene about me & I w'uld n't rob my bruthers of the post of danger and glory." This catched Higs & he sed: "You'll do. Yu've staad up North too long. You ort to be in the cabinet. You may go with HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 79 me." Afterwards we took in Brown & arranged the de- tailes & here I be. HOOSEAR. N. B. Don't kum out to se me. I 'm not keepin a hotell, but if enny of the boys wants a mind red to 'em let 'em send me a lock of thare hair & five dolars. The Human Woodchuck. Are your outside windows on? Is your storm-porch in place? Are your doors well supplied with weather- strips? Is your furnace working well? In a word, have you taken all those precautions against the admission into your houses between this time and next May of a single breath of clear, cold, pure air that has n't been driven through a tunnel and then baked? Of course you have. Nobody neglects these things in these days of high civilization. Again: Have you arranged it so that during the six months to come your wives and daughters will not be compelled to go beyond the reach of the air bakery you have in your cellar or in each room, so that under no circumstances will any of them be subjected to con- tact with the crisp breath of winter again? Of course a man who has any business must of neces- sity go out of doors some. If he be thoroughly civil- ized he will go very little, scudding from his house to his shop or office in the least time possible, and using every known device to keep fresh air from his lungs, and when he is under cover he will take his revenge for 80 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF being compelled to go out at all by toasting himself brown in a heat so sultry and dry that no animal but a man would live in it a week. Still, as we have said, being a man he cannot escape living in the open air a few minutes each day; but his women folks are more favored. Nothing compels them to go out, and so they stay in, except possibly in the finest of weather, and from November until May no wintry blast will kiss their pale cheeks, take liberties with their fragile forms, or find its way down their delicate throats. To all in- tents and purposes they are as much buried during the winter as any of the hibernating animals. Now this is all very comfortable, but we guess it is n't the highest wisdom. Man, even in his most civil- ized state, is n't a bear or a woodchuck nor yet a chip- munk, that he should flee to a den and spend the win- ter sucking his claws or munching chestnuts. Neither his body nor his mind was made for any such business. It is one of the laws of his being that he cannot live in a healthy condition without sunshine and pure air, and when he deprives himself of these, in summer or winter, his nerves go crazy, his heart becomes weak and his lungs torpid, aches and ails creep over and through him, and he becomes a most miserable apology for what a stalwart, healthy man ought to me. Not only this, but his head becomes stupid and heavy, and his brains are worth about as much as a calf's after they have been cooked, and no more. It is a serious fact that Americans are steadily educat- ing and civilizing themselves into a nation of invalids and weaklings. We are no longer able-bodied. Some- HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 81 thing ails all the men, and, as for the women, their bodies are little more than camping-grounds for whole colonies of aches and weaknesses of every name and nature. This is especially true of the residents of cities, where a thoroughly healthy woman is rare enough to be a curiosity. In bringing us to this pass our habits during the winter season have had much, to do. The shrinking dread of cold air, the ignoble love of well-warmed lazi- ness, the cowardly notion that we are too delicate to bear any exposure, and the whole brood of similar fan- cies, which, keeps us hovering round a furnace register or a stove all winter, have made sad work for the great body of American men and women who live in cities; and unless in this respect and many others we turn over a new leaf, we might as well make our wills, be- queathing the country to some hardy race of foreigners, and be buried. The painful petering out of the Yankee race cannot be pleasant or profitable. But the cause suggests the cure, which is, in a word, outdoor exercise; not only in summer, when it is uncomfortable staying in the house, but in spring and fall and winter, at all times and at all seasons. There will not be five days so cold, nor fifteen so stormy, that it will not do a woman, properly clad, more good than hurt to spend an hour or two out of doors, and if there was some law of church or state to turn everyone not confined to her bed into the street for two hours every day, spring would find us with much fewer invalids on our hands than we shall have now. 82 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF Get out of doors. If you own a team, use it; if not and you can afford it, buy one. If your purse is short, patronize the horse cars, and if it is empty, go afoot. If you have friends, visit them; if you have not, go and make peace with your enemies. Go up street, down street, anywhere and everywhere. Do anything to get out of your dens. Oom Paul. Oom Paul was one of the strongest, most picturesque, and most admirable characters of his generation. His- tory may only record that he was the president of a little republic which was destroyed by Great Britain. We have known him as a man of courage that feared no odds; of patriotism that never counted cost; of faith in God so intense that it became fanatical; of pious devo- tion that never slept; of worldly wisdom and shrewd- ness that with a fair chance, would have commanded success; as the hero of a struggle for independence, that, as he predicted, staggered humanity before it ended in the subjugation of his people; as the organizer and leader of a handful of farmers who for months and years held the British empire at bay and beat back the hordes that British greed, ambition and treachery sent to crush them. He failed, for his resources were as nothing compared with those of the invader; but we know of no more heroic fight for Home, Country, and God than he and his followers made in the mountains and on the plains of the Transvaal. BENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 33 "Mr. Destiny/' Said the youngster: "Pa, who is this Mr. Destiny that the papers say took our ships to Cuba and Porto Rico and the Philippines and is giving us all those is- lands and folks and things?" Said the father: "Listen, my son, and I will tell you. There was a man named Don who abused his family shamefully, and Mr. Destiny, who lived close by and was a humane and Christian gentleman, went over and kicked in the door of Don's house and told him he came to see that he did n't pound and starve his wife and children any more. Then the two had a fight and Des- tiny licked Don and put him out of the house, and after- wards he looked round and said, 'This is a good-looking woman and these are bright children. All they need is to be civilized and Christianized, and I think I ought to keep them for mine. And this house is a good one and so is the farm it stands on, and I '11 keep them, too, because it would be wicked to give them back to such an old pagan as Don, and if I left them the other neighbors would fight over them.' So he took Don, who had n't any more fight left in him, out in the road and made him deed his farm and folks to him, and raised the Stars and Stripes over the house, and issued a proclamation saying he did it all in the name of hu- manity and because his name was Destiny. So now, when anybody goes out and grabs things that don't belong to him in the name of humanity and says he can't help it, the papers call him Mr. Destiny." 84 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF The Democratic Leader. The Democratic candidate for speaker, and the real leader of the Democratic side of the house, is Albert S. Batchellor, who lives at Littleton, a town that is always represented by one or more "big Injuns" of the Demo- cratic tribe. He is twenty-nine years old according to the family Bible, but a good deal older than that in some things. He was born in Bethlehem, fitted for college at Tilton, graduated at Dartmouth in 1872, read law with the Binghams, and, on being admitted to the bar, formed a partnership with George A., which con- tinued until that eminent jurist was boosted onto the bench. Since that time Batchellor has paddled his own canoe and done it very successfully. They call him one of the best lawyers in Grafton county. This is his third year in the House, and few men ever won more friends in two sessions than he has done. With such parentage, surroundings, teachings, and opportunites as he has had, he is, of course, an uncompromising Demo- crat, and can be relied on to do as much mischief in the interests of his party as anybody else; but he knows slavery has been abolished, has always been proof against the greenback heresy, and has a very lively apprecia- tion of the fact that his folks in congress have been making fools of themselves. He is a good speaker, but never talks unless he has something to say, except, of course, upon the previous question, is a good par- HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 85 liamentarian, quick to see a point and take it, and always cool and good natured. Socially, he is one of the best and most popular in the whole three hundred; frank, jolly, and generous, with an appreciation of the proprieties of time and place, true to his friends, and ready to help them upon occasion without their asking. Altogether, he is much too good a man to have such poison politics, and, when he marries a Republican wife, we hope to see him converted to the true faith, and received into the fold and sent to congress. Lightning at Close Range. But there 's one thing about Kensington we don't like its thunder showers are overdone. In the discharge of our duty as a reporter we hope we are willing to do and dare as much as another, even to hunting for Livingstone, interviewing the Shah, or "going up" in a balloon with Professor Wise; but when it comes to interviewing a streak of red-hot lightning and reporting the mechanism of a first-class thunder- bolt we would rather be excused. Electricity has done great things for this country it 's big on election returns and market reports, and without it we could n't raise electric eels nor telegraph operators; but to bathe in or to drink, it does n't recom- mend itself to us water is preferable, and even whis- key, if no less fatal, is at least slower. Were you ever struck by lightning? If not don't hesitate to own it, and trust to us to tell you "how it feels." 86 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF On a sultry Sunday, under the shade of a spreading maple in your host's dooryard, trying to catch the weak sea-breeze and watching the gathering shower, leaning against the tree you sit ten feet away you lie. It is all at once there is neither space nor time in the pas- sage. A million infinitessimal needles are darting through your veins and losing themselves in your ex- tremities, eight hundred galvanic batteries are running on double time in your head; your joints crackle and snap, your bones seem charged with a force that is bursting them, and by the time friends pick you up you think you are an Atlantic cable with twenty President's messages running through you. Then, for days after- wards that fearful snap is ringing in your ears every time you move your joints seem to be separating and your flesh creeping off your bones, and you look care- fully to see if you have not resolved your body into its original elements gone to pieces. "All at once and nothing first, Just as bubbles do when they burst." Then your stomach seems to be crawling up to swallow your heart, and your heart appears to have swallowed your stomach, and it 's uncomfortable every way. But when you learn that the lightning went straight down the tree on the opposite side from you, shivering the bark and boring a hole among the roots, you feel thank- ful that there are two sides to a tree, and go off hunt- ing for a lightning-rod man, who will point you up at twenty-five cents per foot, and, if you are the philoso- pher you ought to be, congratulate yourself that "it 's not as bad as it might be." HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 87 The State's Money. "Those who want the public money will not fail to present their cases. It is for us to protect the tax- payers. Every dollar we vote out of the treasury some- body must put in." Governor Floyd's Message. It is a strange fact that this is exactly and without exception true. In practice, if not in theory, taxpayers are utterly regardless of the amounts voted out of their pockets by legislatures, and at the same time in order to keep the assessment of their property for purposes of taxation down will come nearer to lying and cheat- ing and swearing falsely than in any other business. The bills introduced in our legislature this year must, if they had all been passed, have taken from the treas- ury more than three million dollars in the next two years, and large amounts every year in the future. They were for every conceivable purpose. Stated broadly, they loaded upon the state almost numberless burdens which individuals found it inconvenient to bear, or made the state responsible for expenses, which no one else would pay. And every dollar they called for was a dollar added to the taxes of the people of New Hamp- shire. But what taxpayer, individual or corporate, went to Concord to protest against any of them, to ask that the appropriations they carried be cut a penny? Not one that we ever heard of. There never before was such a storm of outsiders in Concord trying to get their hands into the treasury. 88 SELECTIONS F1W.U THE WRITINGS OF From the standing lobbies of Durham and Dartmouth colleges down to the poor devil of a newspaper reporter, who only asked for a hundred dollars, all kinds of sup- pliants for state aid were in evidence every day, but never one who asked to have the taxes reduced. Man- chester pays more than one seventh of the state tax and the proportion is steadily increasing. This tax, which was three hundred thousand dollars during Governor Bachelder's administration, is now fixed at five hundred thousand dollars, which will not pay expenses by nearly one hundred thousand dollars. In other words, the lavish appropriations of the last three years have doubled the amount that must be levied upon Manchester as a city, and neither our city government nor our board of trade nor the Amoskeag corporation, our largest tax- payer, has, so far as we know, made even a whispered protest. Indeed, we have never seen any evidence that any of these parties in interest have given the subject attention enough to know whether the legislature was doubling the state tax or cutting it in two, and the same is true of every other large city and town in the state. This is not because they do not or may not know what is going on at Concord. Introduce a bill authoriz- ing somebody to build a new dam on the Merrimack, which by a remote possibility might injure a Manchester enterprise, and our corporations, our city government, our board of trade, and our citizens get busy in a day, rush to Concord, and organize and work like beavers for its defeat. Propose a bill requiring the state house em- ployees to keep their offices open forty instead of HENRY MARCV8 PUTNEY. 89 thirty-three hours a week, and they swarm about the members with the most piteous appeals against such persecution. Propose another fixing the salary of the official stenographers anywhere near what they could earn in private employ, and the whole fraternity goes into convulsions. Suggest that a half-dozen new nor- mal schools be billeted upon the treasury, and twice as many places, our own included, are out for them with arguments, petitions, and all the devices of a trained lobby. Come to Concord with the proposition that the trustees of Dartmouth College can use forty thousand dollars more than they have, and that the state should go out and borrow it for her, and all the professors and alumni labor and log-roll until the grab succeeds. Offer any kind of a bill or resolution that takes money from the treasury, and somebody is on the ground to put it through by fair means or foul. And so on to the end of the chapter. Verily, those who want the public money do not fail to present their claims, while those who pay the taxes are too busy or too indifferent to pay any attention to the matter, although, as we have said, when it comes to dodging taxes the best of them can be depended on to do their utmost. Is it a case of everyone's business being nobody's? Or is there such abiding faith in the wisdom and integ- rity of the governor and legislature that it is assumed they will do what is right, having constantly in mind that what they vote out of the treasury somebody must put in? Whether this be so or not, the appropriating powers are left to empty the state's strong box, and then, if there is a vacuum, to borrow what they want without let or hindrance. 90 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF The Man of the Hour. [The following is a reply to William E. Chandler's letter ad- dressed to the administrators, assignees, and successors of the Lincoln Club. In this article Mr. Putney brings forward the name of ex-Sen- ator Chandler in connection with the governorship the first mention made of it.] Manchester, N. H., October 24, 1907. William E. Chandler, Brevet President New Hampshire Branch of the Roosevelt Ananias Club: John McLane has not asked me to reply to your let- ter addressed to him and others, upon whose doorstep the Lincoln Club has left the reform cherubs born at 2 a. m., July 25, 1906, in the headquarters at Concord. Neither have you asked me to join you in exhortation or advice. But I like you first rate. Next to Artemus Ward's Kangaroo, you are the most "amoozing Kuss" I have ever met in literature or politics. Yes, I love you so that if my affection does not cool when you are eighty-eight years old I will appoint myself your "next friend," make a grab at your fortune at the expense of the county, and, when the court fires me out, go and sit at the mouth of your tomb and wait until you arrive, and I can break your will on the ground that you are not of sound mind, which I can prove if Gal- linger is alive. Besides, you have always been suspected and often charged with being responsible for the pain- HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 91 ful perennial pregnancy of reform in New Hampshire and for her multitudinous progeny, and I am so sur- charged with a desire to assist you in assembling them in one bunch and unifying them and teaching them to sing one song that I venture some suggestions. (1) Owing doubtless to your occasional visits to Washington to discharge the duties of the chairman of the Spanish claims commission, and serve as a decoy duck for Ben Tillman, you have at times separated from that ever-flowing fountain of exact knowledge, George H. Moses, and, therefore, are not fully informed as re- gards the true inwardness of the reform movement in this state, and, first, let me tell you that the Churchill- Eemick-Lyford aggregation is nothing if not individual; that the vaudeville in which you are so much interested, because all the ballet dancers look like you, is nothing if not a variety show; that over the door of the head- quarters of the club for which you acted as midwife, and whose dissolution you so bewail, was written in gold letters, charged to Churchill, ASSORTED PRINCIPLES. NO TWO ALIKE. WARRANTED TO SUIT ALL TASTES, GRIEVANCES, AND DISAPPOINTMENTS. SMALL SIZES. A DOLLAR DOWN AND A DOLLAR A MONTH. IF YOU DON'T SEE WHAT YOU WANT, ASK FOR IT. So you see, my dear senator, that your diagnosis of the troubles that beset reform, as want of principles, is 92 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF not correct. As you say, they also lack a constituency. But principles they have had to burn in individual packages from the beginning. (2) You are equally at fault when you call the roll of the faithful, and grievously unjust when you put in- terrogation points after the names of Streeter and Hollis. Does any one reasonably expect them to crack their throats shouting against the railroad octopus and the Salem racetrack lobby when there's nothing in it? Must a penitent, in order to show his sincerity, be as vociferous on wind as He was aforetime on retainers? Have n't they "Coniston" by heart, and are n't they feeding and fattening the "gallant leader," whose checks for fifteen thousand dollars attest his devotion to political purity and his abhorrence of office holders, less, of course, what it cost to hire Dan Remick in the last campaign? I am not so sure about Hollis, who is young and unseasoned, but I will vouch for Streeter as a square-edged, kiln-dried convert. Neither does your treatment of that devout worshiper of the rising sun, the Hon. James 0. Lyford, please me. Is it his fault if the sun wobbles now and then and goes down when his almanac says it should go up? Is he to be scorched by your sarcasm because he thought there was an eclipse when the returns from your ward four caucus came in a year ago? I think not. Your omissions are quite as bad. Jack Kelly, your fellow, next friend, Henry Robinson, and Natt Martin, your moral advisers, Frank Challis, Mike Meehan; the editors of The Union, Henry H. Metcalf, Davison, Newman, Dan Remick, and the other HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 93 choice spirits and specimen reformers whom you have tutored, taken to your bosom, and yanked through so many reform dances! Why are they barred from the roll of honor? Why are they obliged to stand aside while you and the other elect essay to throw the cars off the track and save us from the maw of the merger? I subscribe to your touching tribute to John McLane. You brought him up by hand, and his character does you credit. You gave him some good advice and I hope he will take it. But I trust he will not be impetuous and rash and unnecessarily expose himself when the bat- tle is on. If he should perish the jig would be up. You think Pillsbury and Churchill should have got together in the last convention, and right you are. When I was a boy I read of two beautiful green snakes who settled a dispute as to which was the bigger by seizing each other by the tail and swallowing and swal- lowing until there was nothing left of either, but they were unified. I have always thought it was a nice way to settle their differences, and I was glad to see the act reproduced last year and to learn from Churchill that "the performance is now going on." Do you think it politic to remind the Honorable James W. Remick that when he was your "early and avowed choice" for United States senator he did n't get a vote, whereas when you were his early and avowed choice you got several? Isn't such a reminiscence cal- culated to chill his ardor? Is n't it likely to handicap the intermittent candidacy of Streeter, whom you promise to support when his probation is ended, if he makes good? 94 SELECTIOyS FROM THE WRITINGS OF To return to your stock in trade, or assets in bank- ruptcy, as you prefer, that is, your assorted principles, there is, as I have said,* no lack of variety, and the only question is, which shall be used in building a plat- form so free from splinters and nails that you can all stand on it with bare feet. Of course you have "Old Paramount," the railroad issue, and a new eruption or horror in the shadow of the merger will be timely and ought to be popular, especially with Boston & Maine stockholders, who tumbled over themselves to exchange their holdings for New York & New Haven in order to make ten dollars a share, only to discover later on that they might have made the exchange in open market with a large margin the other way. Then there is the taxation problem, and it 's easy to get together on that. We will all agree that some way should be devised to make the million- aires, whose enormous accumulations are invested in Washington, St. Louis and other foreign countries, but who come here to reform us and rule over us, pay more than poll taxes and automobile licenses. The office-holding question is more complicated. Your plank, "EVERY MAN FOR AN OFFICE; AN OFFICE FOR EVERY MAN AND SOME WOMEN," without which you think your party will be small, would doubtless draw recruits, but it would shock and repel others whom you need for exhibition purposes. You see a good deal depends on the style you display and the HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 95 front you carry, fitill, I am of the opinion that sooner or later they will need a candidate for governor, and this brings me to the crux of my meditations. (4) Chandler, you 're it. And I suspect you know- it, and while your chronic modesty postpones your announcement until you can break it gently to your fellow patriots, in due time you will come forth pano- plied in the uniform of the Later Day Crusaders as the Reformation candidate for governor. I, for one, shall give you a warm welcome, for it is the proper caper. You are more kinds of a reformer than any other man in New Hampshire; you have more principles than a hedgehog has quills and they are all adjustable; you are more scared of the octopus than any other. Your versatility as a mischiefmaker excels any other's. You can bear trouble with equanimity and defeat does not sour you. You are a strong one and a slick one. You are the "Man of the Hour," without portrait or poetry or other fifty dollars advertising. You are to the manor born and have lived in New Hampshire several weeks every year. The people know your tricks and your man- ners, and delightful as they are will not be deceived by them. Above all, when they get you into the conven- tion you will not quit and run away. For Governor William E. Chandler, of the "United Elements." HENRY M. PUTNEY. 96 SELECTION'S FROM THE WRITIXOS OF What Jones Can Say, One of The Union's homemade Concord dispatches says the championship of the Republican state conven- tion, for which Harry M. Cheney had been selected before he fell outside the breastworks in the Lebanon caucus, may go to Hon. Edwin F. Jones of this city. Mr. Jones is a very capable and experienced presid- ing officer, but he cannot fill two roles at once, and as it is said he has been selected to present the name of R. W. Pillsbury, candidate for governor, it does not seem that he can be spared to wield the gavel and announce the nomination of Quinbv. We shall not apply to him for advance copies of the President's speech and as to what he will say when he launches the apostle of progressive politics. We can only guess; but it may well be something like this: Fellow Citizens: For the purposes of this case I am a Reformer. Don't laugh! As the tried and trusted attorney of the octopus, otherwise known as the Boston & Maine Railroad; the counsel and representa- tive of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, the Arkwright Club of Boston, and the New Hampshire Traction Company; the partner and fellow-worker of Streeter in the pleasant and profitable occupations of the late lamented railroad and racetrack lobbies, hav- ing been allowed a day off by my regular clients, I appear before you to present as a candidate for your support HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 97 the peerless apostle of progressive principles, the arch enemy of all octopuses, the foe of the lobby and scrap- per with the machine, the would-be Honorable Rose W. Pillsbury of Londonderry. Again, don't laugh! Eemember the versatility of my talents, the necessity of my client, and consider that lawyers must live. I come to tell you of the great and varied assortment of principles he carries and to assure you of his willingness to adapt them to all your wants and wishes. "If you don't see what you want, call for it" is the sign on our store. And I bring with me from the Queen City to assist in this labor of love and duty and profit my partner and associated "hireling," Robert L. Manning, those devoted champions of union labor, Harry P. Ray and H. A. Trull, and cultured Greeks without number. We come to make affidavit that our candidate came into this world with the state seal as a birthmark; that he cried for it as a child, fought for it as a youth, and is determined to have it to play with regardless of methods, expense or consequences, and that if you do not let him have it his great heart will break into junk and his ghost will shake its gory locks at you and shriek, "You did it." May it please the court, the plea of the prisoner at the bar is "Not guilty." Later we may ask to amend by adding by "reason of insanity." We are prepared to show that he is not a Judas, circumstances and the confessions of Remick and Churchill to the contrary notwithstanding. We can convince you that if he is guilty there are extenuating circumstances. But I am wobbling a bit. 98 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITIXVS OF To return: I am here to tell you on my honor that he is a very affectionate man; that his blood has been analyzed and is thicker than water and that his love for his old schoolmates is one of the cherished traditions of Derry. I am here to tell you that he is a very liberal man; that his benefactions in Manchester have enabled hun- dreds of our citizens to face a winter of plenty when but for him the high price of coal might have been troublesome. Your Excellency and Members of the Honorable Council, we come to petition not for justice but for mercy. We beg of you to let him go. He is not half as terrible as he talks. He is not half as savage as he looks. If he eats a railroad commissioner for breakfast every morning it is only because they are tender and his appetite is delicate. Set him free and Brother Bur- roughs will take him home and guarantee his docility. But I am off my trolley again. Gentlemen, if Mr. Pillsbury is elected, he will not take away my pass nor any other man's. He will not fling back his own into the faces of the railroads on which he rides free. He will not impose crushing taxes upon corporations as long as the Union Publishing Company, with a capitaliza- tion of $122,000, is valued for purposes of taxation at $16,500. He will make it easy and pleasant for every one. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Judiciary Com- mittee, I submit there is no call for legislation affecting the business of Xew Hampshire corporations. It stands to reason that they know their business and don't need HENRY MARCUS PVTXEY. 99 your help in managing it. It goes without saying that in this land of liberty they should be free to make their hours what they please, to hire Greeks, to have every chance to compete with rivals in other states. Pardon me again. I forgot for the moment where I am at, and who I am for this half hour. What I am retained to say is this: Before New Hampshire can take her place among the purified and virtuous sisters the rails of the Boston & Maine Railroad must be torn up and the wheels of the Amoskeag company must be smashed into old iron and corporations must be abol- ished and Churchill and Remick must be furnished with fiddles on which to play "We did it," and R. W. Pillsbury must be created overlord of the territory, restored to its primitive beauty and pristine simplicity. What are the objections to Mr. Pillsbury? They tell us, "There is no real sentiment for him." Look at Henry Hurd! Isn't he real sentiment, all wool and a yard wide for one ballot? If he isn't, what is he? Look at Perley Elliot! Is n't he the real thing when it comes to sentiment? Look at Sherm Burroughs! Is n't he the incense of aesthetic sentiment? Look at Man- ning! Look at me! Aren't we sentimental? If we know ourselves we are. They tell us he would be an unsafe governor. Un- safe? With Fowler and Nichols and Burnham and Naxon and Hyde and the other high-priced and brainy Democrats he has hired to tell him what to do and when to do it! Perish the thought! Brother Republicans, reform is in the air and the 100 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF Pillsbury cart is hitched to it. If it is not upon earth it is because there is no need of it there. Look aloft and you can see it. Stretch your ears and you can hear it. Expand your nostrils and you can smell it. Don't mistake it for a balloon filled with hot air. Don't shoot at it with a gun. Wait for it to come down. Parables aside Don't disembowel Reform in the person of R. W. Pillsbury; nominate him for governor. Forgive him as I do for a consideration, for what he has done and has not done, and let the people, the dear people, the sovereign people, do things to him at the polls. Gentlemen, the task for which I was employed is done. I go to shed a tear over the result, but let no man dare accuse me of insincerity. HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 101 Charles T. Means, The Tribute of a Friend. In the death of the Hon. Charles T. Means is lost a public-spirited citizen, whose genial presence can ill be spared from the wide circle which it gladdened. A keen appreciation of human nature was united in him to a rare childlike trustfulness, which led him to address himself confidently to the higher side of men. One may say that his deep desire to meet men at their best awoke in them the impulse to reveal it, and therein may be found a partial explanation of the extraordi- nary affection entertained for him by all sorts and con- ditions of men. If it be true that one finds what one is looking for, then Mr. Means' charitable estimate of his fellowmen, his never-failing consideration are easily seen to have been sincere. Add to this optimism a sympathy which thrilled to every creature's joys or sorrows as distinctly imagined as though they were his own and it may be readily conceived that his widening powers and generously ap- plied opportunities brought him in close touch with many lives. However narrow their resources, his associates were always able to give him something that he prized, for his nature craved true love and kindly demonstration. The affection of a child, the devotion of a servant, was as highly prized as any of the civic honors conferred 102 SELECTIONS FROU THE WRITINGS OF upon him, and the last words of an idolized mother that he had never given out a moment's uneasiness in his life were treasured above wordly plaudits. To many he is best known by some sapient remark or quaint painting of a situation in a word picture so piquant that it slipped at once into general circulation. It was easy to forget, when seeing him in his boyish moods of relaxation, that an exact, enterprising, clear- headed, business talent lay beneath that frolicsome exterior. Pre-eminently a man of affairs, entrusted with mani- fold responsibilities strictly fulfilled, what he did he did well, with the pugnacity of a man who never accepts defeat. To all the old-time virtues characteristic of New Eng- land's successful men was joined the artistic tempera- ment, not of a producer, but of a lover of the beautiful. His joys in the face of nature never flagged. Her woods and fields, her byways and secret haunts printed the calendar of the fleeting months upon his heart and often brought to the threshold of his lips the utterance: "How amiable are thy tabernacles, Lord of Hosts!" All birds he knew, all trees, and largely of the flowers. And the old melodies he loved and the fine phrasing of Saxon scripture. Devotion to family ties was with him a passionate cult, and loyalty to friends no less intense. Few men in middle life could boast so many affectionate friends among women older than himself. To these there will come a personal affliction in the loss of one who glowed with pleasure at the chance to do them a service. HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 103 In all the relations of life he rang true, a true man; true to home, to friend, and to civic duty. Beloved and trusted by all he is universally mourned and regretted. Bishop Bradley. The best tribute to the memory of Bishop Denis M. Bradley is the universal feeling wherever he was known that no man living can fill his place, and this feeling cannot be deepened by any attempt to state the reasons why it exists and pervades the communities in which he lived and labored. But it is fitting that a newspaper which speaks for its readers should, while they are bowed by their sense of personal loss, say something of some of the qualities of the dead clergyman that com- manded the reverence and affection of his own people and the genuine respect of all our citizens, without distinction of creed, condition, nationality or calling. We have neither command of language nor of space to try to do more than this. Bishop Bradley was a great man and he was a good man. He did a great work and did it well. He was a power for good in his generation and he laid deep and strong the foundations upon which his successors will build the temples of their faith and establish the seats of their usefulness. Born in a humble home, lacking in childhood and youth the advantages that money and influence could have given him, and dying when little past middle age, he rose to the highest position in the Catholic church in this state, and accomplished what 104 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF no one, at the time he entered the priesthood, thought it was possible for any man, however gifted and devoted, to do. The upbuilding of that church in New Hamp- shire, the organization of its many parishes, the gather- ing into its fold of its tens of thousands of worshipers, the accumulation of its great properties, the establish- ment of its numerous schools and hospitals and homes were for twenty years under his direction and largely by his efforts. The Catholic church is an autocracy. Within their respective jurisdictions its heads are the centers of re- sponsibility and power, and its condition reflects their capacity. As it stands in New Hampshire today it is a monument to Bishop Bradley, and he needs no other. His spirituality was stamped upon his face, modu- lated his voice and was conspicuous in his bearing. It shone in his acts and inspired his utterances. His greet- ing was an exhortation. His smile was a benediction. And yet he was an eminently practical man. The vast material interests of his church were managed and pro- moted with remarkable judgment and skill and his ad- vice in the worldly affairs of the many who went to him for counsel was always safe and sound. He grew up among his people and he knew their character, their habits, their needs and their wants collectively and in- dividually. He sympathized with and assisted them in their misfortunes. He encouraged them when they were prosperous. He directed them when they were uncertain how to go, and followed and led them back when they went astray. HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 105 By day and by night, in sickness and health, he worked for them. If he had a weakness it was his in- ability or unwillingness to assign to others duties which they could and should have performed. If he made a serious mistake it was in wearing himself out carrying burdens that were beyond his physical strength and that others should have borne. No one was too poor, too ignorant or too debased to interest him. No detail was too small to command his attention. No drudgery was too hard for him to perform if he thought he could do it better than another. The widows and the orphans, the sick and the wretched were the objects of his con- stant care and he never wearied of providing for them and saving them from becoming public charges. He saw that the boys and girls were educated and as far as possible that they were placed after leaving school where they could be successful and useful. He was not a bigoted man. While always true to his religious faith, and always zealous in promoting the growth of his church, he quarreled with none because they did not accept his creed and was willing to work with whoever was trying to make the world better. He was a good citizen. His great influence, which far exceeded that of any other man in the state, was always exerted for good government, for law and order, for honesty in public affairs, for healthful progress, and for all that conserved the public good. He never lacked moral courage and he was steadfast in support of his convictions, paying little regard to clamor or entreaty when once he had taken a stand. 106 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF He lived a pure and blameless life gently and mod- estly, but always maintained a dignity befitting his po- sition, and so conducted himself at all times as to teach by example as well as by precept. He was approach- able, patient and amiable, even when his time was being wasted, and there were none who could say aught against him. Frank Dowst. Of the sixty thousand people in Manchester there are very, very few so well known, so highly respected, so sincerely loved, as was Frank Dowst, and the announce- ment that he is dead shocks and saddens the entire community. All who knew him feel that they have lost a friend; all who know what he did during his busy life in Manchester feel that the place he occupied cannot be filled. For at least twelve years he had been a sick man, and at many periods had suffered severely, but only those near to him were aware how much, for through all the clouds of illness that he knew would sometime be fatal, and of physical torture that would have crushed the spirits of almost any other, his indomitable courage, his serene hopefulness, his radiant cheerfulness, shone as constantly as when he was well. No complaint es- caped him. No apprehension that he might not live, that his business might not prosper, that anything det- rimental to his patrons, associates or friends might come from his weakness, ever found expression by his lips. In sickness as in health, up to the last, he was the HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 107 same sunny, strong, inspiring, encouraging personality; and even those who knew by how frail a thread his life hung were not prepared to hear of his death. He was a powerful man physically until an accident crippled him, and his mental faculties, which never weakened, were of a very high order, because they were eminently practical, effective, and useful. A farmer's boy, with only the rudiments of an education, without influential friends or money, he began his business ca- reer as a carpenter's apprentice with nominal pay, and from this he rose rapidly to be the real head and master spirit of the largest company of contractors and build- ers in New Hampshire, because he was always faithful, honest, honorable, capable. Because of him, and the assistants he brought around him, the Head & Dowst Company has been great, prosperous, and successful. It had in its employ hundreds of skilled men, who all felt that its interests were their own. It had fine credit. It was able to gather all needed material. There was no contract too large for it to execute; no job too small for it to do. It could do and it did anything and everything in the line of construction, and whatever it did it did well. When once a price was agreed upon there was no consideration of the profit or loss. The work was delivered according to the contract, or better. That was Frank Dowst. Many of the largest and finest structures, not only in Manchester, but in other parts of New Hampshire, are monuments to him and reflect his solid, well-rounded character. He had wonderful judgment. It was said that he could look at a set of plans and judge offhand what 108 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF the cost would be better than most architects could figure them. And in every spot and place he seemed to be endowed with an instinct as to value?, cost, and results which never went wrong. He was master of his calling. He knew how to do things, and he knew when they were well done. He was incapable of trick- ery, deceit, sharp practice or meanness of any kind, and he abominated all who tried to succeed by crooked- ness. He was the most modest and democratic of men. He never sought an office. He never desired promi- nence outside of his business. He was generous to a fault. He was public-spirited and he was the most loyal and profuse of friends and the most delightful of associates. He did a great deal to make Manchester what she is and for what he did for those who were fortunate enough to be intimately connected with him there is no measure. Yesterday there was but one Frank Dowst. There is none now. Mrs. Aretas Blood. She went about doing good. With great wealth, with social position, with a wide circle of accomplished friends, with a devoted family, with everything to tempt her to confine her cares and activities to the fields in which the prosperous and the happy live, and to enable her to command for herself luxury and ease, she turned aside to the unfortunate, and, without neg- lecting her duties to her family or society, made it her mission to heal the sick, comfort the distressed, clothe HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 109 the naked, feed the hungry, and provide homes for the homeless. And year in and year out, until at a great age she was called to her reward, she gave herself to this work, unreservedly, bounteously, quietly, indus- triously, successfully. She was the good angel of Man- chester. To her we are mainly indebted for one of our noble charities. To her hundreds of our deserving poor and sick have been indebted for all the comfort and relief that human aid could secure for them. Above all we are indebted to her for an example, which was a con- stant inspiration to others who were able to give and to do, and a promise to those who were dependent upon the more fortunate. She was a good woman and a great woman. Good in every relation of life, great in her purposes, her meth- ods and her achievements. She was respected and loved, almost revered while she lived, and her memory will be tenderly and gratefully cherished. Moody Currier. The long list of New Hampshire's successful and eminent men contains few if any names that are en- titled to precedence over that of ex-Governor Moody Currier, who died at his residence in this city, Tuesday noon, and there is certainly no other whose career il- lustrates more strikingly the rewards that are open to ability, integrity, industry, and perseverance. ' 110 SELECTIOXS FROM THE WRITIXGS OF Born in poverty and obscurity, obliged from child- hood to support himself by manual labor upon a farm, and to obtain what primary education he had from a few stray books by the light of the chimney fire, with- out material assistance or even encouragement from relatives or friends, with no money except the few dol- lars he could earn, and no resources except what were entirely within himself, he determined to secure a college training, fit himself for a profession, and win his way by hard work to a high and honorable place among the great men of his state. Long before he passed away he had succeeded in everything he undertook. He was New Hampshire's greatest scholar. He was one of her ablest financiers. He held the highest po- litical honors in the gift of her people. He acquired a fortune and contributed largely to the acquirement of a competency by others. He commanded the respect of the community in which he lived and the confidence of all who were associated with him. His home re- flected his large means, great learning, and cultivated tastes. His house and grounds were ornaments of the city and the delight of all admirers of substantial archi- tecture and floral beauty. His family idolized him, and in his declining years ministered to him with the great- est watchfulness and tenderest care. He leaves to his friends a record which is to them a precious legacy and to all an inspiration. He was the most learned man with whom we were ever acquainted. For more than eighty years his books were the constant companions of his leisure hours. He never read merely HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. Ill for amusement, but always for instruction. Probably in all his life he did not read ten works of fiction. He read slowly, passing nothing which he did not under- stand, and when once he had finished a volume he never forgot what it contained. His knowledge of the Bible surpassed that of almost any New Hampshire man of his time. He could read and write several languages, ancient and modern, and was a master of pure English. He knew science, art, and literature. He was versed in philosophy, astronomy, geology, botany, and natural history. He was a mathematician of a high order. The geography of the world was in his mind and the world's history was familiar to him. He was always informed upon current events and new inventions were the sub- jects of his constant study. His mind was a storehouse of rich and varied knowledge upon nearly every sub- ject. And yet he never displayed his learning, and only his intimate friends know how profound and extensive it was. As a financier he had no superior in the state. In the investment and management of capital his judg- ment was seldom at fault. The moneyed institutions which he founded prospered from the first and grew steadily in size and strength until they stood unshaken monuments to his courage, wisdom, prudence and skill against panics and depressions and all other adversities. There are no wrecks along the paths through which investors followed Moody Currier. He was a public- spirited citizen. He helped lay the foundations of 112 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF Manchester and build the superstructure upon them, and whatever in his judgment promoted her prosperity commanded his support. He never gave because others did. He never tried to buy notoriety. He never pla- cated opposition by bribes, but for the causes in which he believed he had a willing hand and an open purse. He was a man of very decided opinions and therefore a strong partisan. From the birth of the Republican party he was one of its most courageous leaders, wisest counselors, and most liberal contributors. He held many public positions and displayed in all of them the same ability which was so conspicuous in his private affairs. During the War of the Rebellion he was a member of the governor's council, and in this position his financial and executive ability contributed immensely to the ad- vantage of the state and nation. Probably New Hamp- shire was more indebted to him than to any other man for her honorable record in providing money and men in response to the repeated calls of the government. As governor of the state he won a national reputa- tion. His state papers are the classics of our official literature, and all his acts were such as to steadily strengthen him in public confidence and esteem. He was a generous . patron of art and literature. In his religious views he was a liberal. Far from being an infidel he rejected the creeds and ceremonies and superstitions of past ages and found his religious home in the Unitarian church, of which he was a firm sup- porter. He was not an effusive or demonstrative man. His self-control was perfect at all times and under all HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 113 circumstances. He was always calm, deliberate, and quiet. He never sought popularity. He never contrib- uted to sensations. He was always the thoughtful, earnest, steady-going, self-reliant, and reliable citizen. He was an ardent lover of nature and a worshiper of her truth and beauty. His companionship was delightful and helpful to all who appreciated solid worth and enjoyed sound in- struction. His example showed the road to honorable success and was an invitation to whoever was strong, ambitious, and determined. Andrew Bunton. Andrew Bunton was a rare man. In some respects his equal cannot be found in New Hampshire. He filled a peculiar place. He was not what the world calls a great man. He was not ambitious for place or power. He never sought political prominence. He did not strive to amass a fortune. But he was so great hearted and whole souled, so loyal and faithful, so honest and true, so industrious and so capable, so ready and so helpful, so genial and so cordial, that everybody loved him. His business and his society associations gave him a large acquaintance throughout New England, and wherever he was known he was held in respect and af- fection. He had no enemies, for he was no one's enemy. His friends could not be counted, for he was the friend of all. He had much executive ability and a remarkable 114 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF faculty for doing things without friction. He occupied a responsible place and filled it to the entire satisfac- tion of his employers and the public. He was the soul of hospitality and good fellowship and he worked as willingly and zealously as he gave freely and lavishly. He was always called upon when the church or the com- munity needed financial help, sound advice or patient devotion to details, and he never failed. He never turned his back upon a friend in need. He occupied the highest position in the Masonic fra- ternity, and it was universally conceded that he deserved it by his constant, earnest, wise, and successful efforts to promote the welfare of the order. His honesty was never suspected; his honor was never tarnished. He had the sunniest of dispositions. He never lost cour- age and never complained. He was content to do his duty as it came to him and to get all the good out of life he could. It was delightful to know him and help- ful to be associated with him. Good men have lived with him and good men will come after him, but there are very many who will read that he is dead with the feeling that we shall not look upon his like again. HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 115 Because he was True. He was a black man, a member of a race that a cen- tury ago had no legal rights that a white man wa9 bound to respect, and today is subject to the prejudices and resultant hostility that condemns it in most parts of our country to ostracism, persecution, and political vassalage. He never held an official position. He never aspired to leadership. He had no political, social or business influence which anyone invoked. He had no known relatives. Solitary and alone, without kith or kin, modestly, quietly, he fought the battle of life. He had acquired no riches. He was not known as a factor in the commercial or industrial world. He was a mere unit among the millions that are numbered as the human race. But there have seldom been in Man- chester more impressive funeral services than those that took place on Saturday afternoon over the remains of the late Con Scarbor, steward of the Derryfield Club. The spacious rooms of the club were filled with an as- semblage composed of the representatives of most of the important professions, institutions, industries, and enterprises of the city, and delegations from the organ- izations which he had served, who gathered to pay their tribute of respect and affection to a faithful servant and a true friend. The casket, embowered in flowers, conveyed no impression of poverty or loneliness. The simple services, conducted by the Rev. Dr. Lockhart, 116 SELECTIONS FROil THE WRITINGS OF were touchingly appropriate. And when they bore him away to lay in a grave to which neither father nor mother nor brother nor sister nor wife nor child will ever make a pilgrimage, the strong men who were there said with sad hearts, "Poor Con! We cannot fill his place." Because he was always true. Neil Bancroft Drew. Neil Bancroft Drew, eldest son of Hon. Irving W. and Carrie H. M. Drew, of Lancaster, died of pneumonia at the residence of his parents and the place of his birth, at seven-thirty in the morning of May 7, at the age of thirty-one years, after but one week of illness. His magnificent physique and vigorous constitution, in the early stages of the malady, were sources of hope for his early recover}', but, though attended by skilful physicians and trained nurses, and supplied with all that modern medical science affords, the insidious and treacherous disease could not be baffled, and the Reaper was again the Conqueror, just as the birds were singing their matin songs on Sunday morning. "The robins sang in the orchard, The buds into blossoms grew; Little of human sorrow The buds and the robins knew." Mr. Drew was a man of broad learning. In the fields of what may be called polite literature he was unusually well read. The classics, ancient and modern, the ro- mantic and historical novel, as well as current litera- HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 117 ture, were his familiar companions, but history proper, ancient, mediaeval, and modern, was his forte, unless perhaps there be excepted his remarkable aptitude for mathematics. Endowed by birth with an unusually accurate and perceptive mind, reared in an atmosphere of books and learning, eager to learn and ready to grasp, he early acquired an enviable reputation as a young man of un- usual attainments in the fields of literature. But his knowledge of books, as such, was the minor part of his learning. To those who knew him well he was a per- petual source of wonder for his marvelous ability in re- calling, marshaling, and associating facts, facts his- torical, social, scientific, pertaining to all the fields of human endeavor and progress. Essentially a home body, Neil had always remained at the paternal fireside, and though never admitted to the bar, his valuable services to his father in his ex- tensive practice had so familiarized him with the law that he was well grounded in its principles. Of ready wit, social by nature, tenacious of his ma- tured opinion but convincible of his error, stanch to his friends, forgiving to those who gave offence, broad in his charities of things material as well as of things of the heart, he had surrounded himself by a host of friends, who mourn his early and sudden demise. In the family lot in the beautiful Summer-street cem- etery, overlooking the broad, green fields of the Con- necticut and in full view of the surrounding hills, along whose banks and on whose slopes his happy boyhood feet had trod, amid a wealth of flowers he was tenderly laid to rest by loving hands. 118 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF A Mourning Nation. MAHK HANNA. Never before was an American congressman carried to his grave with such testimony of deep and universal grief and widespread sense of personal loss as has at- tended the funeral ceremonies over the remains of Ohio's great senator. As the nation waited anxiously for tidings from his bedside, and clinging to the hope that he might recover while his life ebbed away, so it has stood reverently sorrowing while he has been borne back to his home and laid at rest. All classes, the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the employer and the wage worker, the statesman and the common people, his associates in business, in congress, in the national committee, his political opponents and his party co- workers, those who knew him personally and intimately and those who had never met him and knew him only because of the service he had rendered his party and his country, have in one way or another paid their trib- ute of confidence and admiration over Mark Hanna's bier. He was not president. Eight years ago he was un- known to the country outside of his own state. Only seven years ago he entered public life as a senator, and a senator he remained, putting away from him cabinet portfolios, ambassador's commissions, and all other honors that a president could tender him. He led no uniformed army to victory. He fought no naval battles. HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 119 He made no display of himself on any field or in any forum. He was simply a citizen, and the country mourns him as its first citizen, because his fellow-citi- zens, now that he has gone, appreciate him and do not know where to turn to find the one to fill his place. They mourn him because he was true and great, re- sourceful and forceful, and because he was safe. Josiah G. Bellows. The Hon. Josiah G. Bellows died Sunday at his home in Walpole in the sixty-fifth year of his age. In the autumn of 1900 he was stricken down by paralysis and he has since been little known among the activities of the world outside of Walpole, but his mind has been unclouded, and surrounded by a devoted family and loving friends he has waited for the final summons which calls him hence. Judge Bellows was born on the farm where he lived and died, of pure English ancestry, who were the first settlers of that section, of whom he was very proud, whose traditions he cherished, whose descendants were always the objects of his interest and generous care, and of whose virtues and strength he was a grand type. It was a family of educated, cultured, broad-minded gentlemen and gentlewomen, from which went out many of the ablest lawyers, most honored jurists, and most respected citizens that have been known in New Hamp- shire history, and among them all there was no nobler soul, no brighter intellect, no more lovable character than he. 120 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF He graduated at Harvard and the Harvard Law School, traveled extensively in the old world, read law with Judge Vose at Walpole, and upon his death suc- ceeded to his business. From that time he was easily and always "Walpole's first citizen, the friend, adviser, helper, leader of all her citizens. He was for many years the treasurer and manager of the Walpole Savings Bank, the only one in the Connecticut valley that did not close its doors during the depression of the early nineties. He was for about twenty-five years judge of probate for Cheshire county, and no judge ever com- manded greater measure of confidence and respect than he did in every town in the county. He was one of the directors of the national bank at Keene, whose success reflected his prudence and judgment, a director of the Sullivan County railroad and a master spirit in church, town, school, and social affairs. For none of these positions did he ask. They were offered him because he stood out before all others as the most capable who could be secured for them. He had one weakness, his great modesty. It has been often said that this kept him out of places he should have had, and deprived the state of services he should have rendered. A seat upon the bench of our supreme court, an election to congress, and the governorship were open to him at different times. Only by great importunity was he induced to accept an appointment tendered him by Governor John B. Smith as one of the board of railroad commission, in which office he so endeared himself to his associates and so discharged all his duties and made himself known to the people of EENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 121 the state that the feeling when he resigned that his place could not be filled was universal. He had fine mental endowments, was an accomplished scholar, well read in history and standard literature, thoroughly informed in current events, and a writer of English composition without a peer in the state. He was an able lawyer, a safe financier, a public-spirited citizen. He was loyal, true, and stanch. He hated cant and hypocrisy as he did humbuggery and double deal- ing, and was incapable of trickery and deceit. He was an ever devoted husband and father and his goodness to his friends never wearied nor slept. He was the prince of hosts. At his home profuse, inexhaustible hospitality flowed in constant streams, and abroad he was just as hearty and generous and sunny and inspir- ing. It was a misfortune not to know him, and those of us who did know him intimately counted his friend- ship among our richest blessings. A wife and daughter, whose company and ministrations have lightened the burdens of his long sickness, remain to remember how great and good he was. 122 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF The Country Lawyer. The death of Judge Bellows suggests one of the changes that have resulted from the railway and tele- graph, the turning of people from agricultural to me- chanical pursuits and the concentration of wealth and population in the cities and large villages in New Hamp- shire. He was almost if not quite the last of the class of men who in the first half of the nineteenth century were known as country or village lawyers, and of whom there was generally one and only one in every farming town of importance. As a rule these were great, strong, sturdy all-round men. Many of them were liberally educated and most of them were learned in the law and practice, had wealth of practical commonsense, personal integrity, versatility, and tireless industry. With the ministers they divided the leadership of the communi- ties in which they lived in social, political, and business, as well as professional matters. Collectively they were the first citizens. They were the custodians of their clients and neighbors' private affairs, the arbitrators of their differences, their advisers in doubtful circum- stances, often their bankers, and always their friends. They wrote their wills and settled their estates. They shaped town policies, dominated neighborhood and school matters, and said what was best in the church. From their ranks were drawn members of congress, governors, judges, leaders in the legislature, and officers of the militia. Respect and honor followed them all the HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 123 days of their lives. Nearly all of them were farmers and some were storekeepers and they lived on the level of the common voter, which to some extent explained their influence. They rode their circuits in all kinds of weather, went to the county seats with their own teams, charging their clients only actual expenses and fees which a day laborer would scorn to accept in these days. They seldom accumulated more money in a life- time than many a lawyer gets in a single retainer in these days. But at this distance it looks as if they led most enviable lives. Certainly if comfort and content- ment, the respect of neighbors and friends, influence among associates, usefulness to the public, the satisfac- tion of knowing that one is honest and helpful, weigh against piles of money, style, and admission to aristo- cratic circles, these old-time lawyers had more to be thankful for than their successors in the profession. But, as we have said, they have passed away, and in their places at the bar are the city gents, who live in narrow quarters, go to court in the street cars, lunch at the restaurants, and devote all their energies to hunting for clients and practicing law according to the books. 124 SELECTIOyS FROM THE WRIT1XG8 OF Ruel Durkee. [The following obituary of Ruel Durkee appeared in The Mirrok July 3, 1885. Mr. Putney's summing up of Ruel Durkee's personality will be found especially interesting in view of the prominence that has been given to that unique statesman through Winston Churchill's characterization of him as Jethro Bass in "Coniston."] The death of Ruel Durkee removes one of the most remarkable men in the history of New Hampshire. His like was never seen before and never will be again. For thirty years or more he was a prominent character about every Republican convention, every legislature, and nearly every court in Sullivan county, and so pecu- liar was he in his character, methods, dress, and general appearance that he was an object of interest to every- body. Probably no man in the state knew and was known by so many people. At home he was a farmer. He had little education, no culture, and none of the suavity of manner by which some men get on in the world, but he had great shrewdness and boldness, the ability to lay successful plans, and a most wonderful faculty of dis- covering the failings, opinions, and weaknesses of others, without "giving himself away." He had no ambition to see his name in print, or to gather official honors for himself, but he did have a perfect passion for being a power behind the throne, for having a part in every plot, for helping make or unmake every man within his reach. He had strong prejudices, but he could always HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. 125 subordinate them to every end he had in view. He was patient, watchful, tireless, and never lost his head. These qualities made him the most successful log-roller, pipe-layer and lobbyist of his time. For many years he contributed very largely to the success of nearly every candidate for an important of- fice who won, and to the defeat of nearly every one who lost; was a great factor in every controversy before the legislature, a controlling influence in the politics of his county and town, and a power not to be despised in the courts. Of late years his influence has waned, but looking back over a quarter of a century he could say that no other had ever shaped so many men to his purpose as he. He was an ardent Republican and never failed in his allegiance to his party. It was said of him that the first question he always asked, when re- quested to lend his assistance to any scheme, was, "Will it hurt the Eepublican party?" and the next, "Will it help Ruel Durkee?" This was generally true, but he had many warm friends, and to these he was always loyal, regardless of his own interest. He has been called the Thurlow Weed of New Hampshire, and in many respects he deserved the title. For twenty years or more he was chairman of the board of selectmen of Croydon, and managed the town business a great deal better than he did his own, and for a nominal compensation. He was also at one time appointed messenger to carry the electoral vote to Washington, and was a delegate to our national con- vention, which was the only office he ever had or wanted. In private life he was strictly honest, a good neighbor, and a good citizen. He leaves a wife but no children. 126 SELECTIONS FROM THE WHITINGS OF Gilman Marston. There is little need of writing much about the chair- man of the judiciary committee and leader of the ma- jority in the House, for there is probably no man in the state better known; but a legislative record which did not contain some special reference to him would lack the leading character in the play, and I shall risk a few words in regard to him, not concerning his bril- liant record at the bar, in the army, or in congress, but respecting the man as he appears here in the House, where his word is law to more people than that of any other. He has been here a great deal, how much I don't know, for his coming is pretty much a matter of course, and neither he nor anyone else has kept the record. At the head of the judiciary committee, he is in exactly the right place, for he has a healthy hatred of voluminous legislation, and goes through a batch of bills like a mowing machine through a bunch of flags. His long practice in the courts and his quick percep- tions enable him to see the bearings of a proposed law at a glance, and he stabs as quick as he sees. No other man could or would attempt to do business the way he does. He is a man of strong friendships and as strong prejudices, and this appears in his public work as well HENRY MARCUS PUTNEY. J27 as in his personal relations, but neither his friendship nor his opposition is obtained without good reason. If he believes in and likes a man or a measure, he can always be relied on to fight for them; if he does n't, the further they keep from him the better. There is n't any 6uch word as policy in his dictionary. If he make3 up his mind you are a bad one, he will kick you into the street as quickly and as savagely if you own a whole town and all the voters in it, as he will if you are a tramp and have n't a friend or a voter in the world. When occasion offers, he can be as ugly as a bulldog. There are no concealments about him. More than any other public man I ever knew, he says what he thinks, whether it helps or hurts, and his crisp comments on prominent men and pet measures are sometimes very severe. They make him many opponents, of course, but he does n't seem to care. He hates tramps, hypo- crites and shams, and believes in endless punishment for their benefit. He is as ignorant of the arts and methods of the politician as a doctor of divinity, and during a campaign is always provoking his friends by offending somebody who has votes or influence. Plenty cf men don't like him; some are hostile to him; but everybody respects him, and his followers stick to him and fight for him with a devotion and zeal that can only come of perfect faith in him. A most genial and companionable man generally, when his wrath is roused or his contempt excited, he is as bitter as a winter wind, I suppose no man ever had the courage to attempt to buy him, and, as to driving him, that was probably never suggested as among the possibilities. He seldom makes 128 WRITTNGS OF lli:\L-Y VARCU8 PUTXEY. a long speech, and when he talks makes no attempt to display his oratorical powers, but his words always carry weight, and the House was never so tired that it would not listen to him attentively. Personally the general is one of the most popular men who come here, and no other's friendship or ac- quaintance is more highly valued. He is frank, gen- erous, and approachable, knows how to enjoy himself and to entertain others without an effort, is a good talker, has a large fund of information and anecdote, and is, in his leisure hours, a rare companion for any- body. We never had, have not, and probably never shall have, another man like Gilman Marston. 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