r4
-
Flash In the Pan Affairs That
Originated In Washington
SOME FAMOUS MEN INVOLVED
The Challenge That Cutting of New
York Sent to Breckinridge of Ken
tucky The Brooks Sumner Quarrel
and the Pryor Potter Trouble
Could the details of the causes of nu
nnerous invitations to the field of honor
in order to settle differences by a re
3ort to the code duello and the non
materialization of these expected hos
tile meetings be brought to light they
most assuredly prove to be in
teresting reading matter Many of
these Hashes in the pan affairs origi
aated in Washington in the antebellum
days
In the early part of 1S51 a big sen
sation was caused because of a diffi
culty between John C Breckinridge of
Kentucky and F B Cutting of New
York both members of the national
House of representatives Jt was at the
time when the Kansas Nebraska bill
was under discussion Cutting inti
mated in a speech that Mr Breckin
ridge was partly responsible for an ar
ticle that was published in the Wash
ington Union the Democratic organ in
the capital which was offensive to
him and the two gentlemen indulged
in a colloquy that was very near a bit
ter personal quarrel In the course of
a Mr Cutting made a remark when
the Kentuckian arose and in a quiet
Snt very firm manner asked the New
Tork man to withdraw the statement
The house had been listening to the
remarks of these gentlemen very ear
nestly all the while and when Cut
ting said in answer to Breckinridges
request that he withdraw a specified
portion of his remarks they were as
sertions that Mr Breckinridge had
Been skulking that he would with
draw nothing there came a sensation
which developed into great excitement
when Breckinridge said Cutting had
spoken falsely and that he knew he
lad lied
Now when a gentleman called an
other gentleman a liar in that period of
our history it generally meant a fight
of some kind and so it proved in this
case for before the day was over Mr
Cutting through his friend a Mr
Maurice sent a note to Mr Breckin
ridge calling upon him to retract or
to make the explanation due from one
gentleman to another
Early next morning Mr Breckin
ridge through his friend Colonel
Hawkins accepted the challenge Both
men were up to full measurement in
tfie quality of pluck required for a
sanguinary battle An arrangement
was made to meet at Silver Spring in
the state of Maryland which was the
residence of Hon Francis P Blair
They were going to fight with the or
dinary rifle but they didnt get togeth
er Mutual friends were grieved at the
fdea of a prospective tragedy which
might end the lives of both of these
eminent men Full details of this
transaction in the Interests of peace
were not known but the reconciliation
Tvas effected though not without ur
gent reasonings and the two became
as friendly as ever
Every one knows of the assault upon
Senator Sumner of Massachusetts by
Preston S Brooks of South Carolina
- Tvrgt
OUR PRESIDENTS
ftfr nnq poomed to think J
j
JAMES MADISON
The fourth president of the United States succeeded Thomas Jefferson In
3309 and served two terms lie was born at Port Conway Va In 1751 Be
Big a politician rather than a soldier he took no active part In the Revolu
dsonary war He was honored with many offices bj his native state He did
ale work In the framing of the constitution During his occupancy of the
presidency occurred the Avar of 1812 After his retirement Madison settled
a his estates at Montpelier Va and wrote much upon public topics He
associated witli Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in the authorship
and publication of the Federalist essays in favor and in explanation of the
United States constitution Of the eighty five essays twenty nine were by
Madison He died in 1S36 at the age of eighty five years
DUELS
nu
FAILED
lenge tothe South Carolina man would
come out of this lamentable affair
Brooks It is very well known was in
tensely angered at remarks made by
Mr Sumner concerning Senator Butler
of South Carolina who was an uncle
of Brooks This was in May 183G
The Massachusetts senator had said in
a speech the day before that Senator
Butler showed an incapacity for accu
racy whether in stating the constitu
tion or in stating the law He also
said Tie cannot open his mouth but
out there flies a blunder The excite
ment over this affair was not confined
to Massachusetts and this country but
extended across the sea particularly to
England Massachusetts Avas stunned
with horror Even Wendell Phillips
and William Lloyd Garrison were
aroused to anger
In the meantime Mr Brooks was
awaiting a challenge from some one
Senator Wilson Sumners colleague
and later vice president of the United
States made a speech in which he said
the attack upon Mr Sumner was bar
barous and ruffianly Mr Brooks was
prompt to send him a challenge for
using these worJs Senator Wilson
was opposed to the code and conse
quently declined the challenge He
sent word to his challenger however
that he was ready to defend himself
whenever assailed But some one had
to come to the front for the sake of the
state that honored Sumner Anson
Burlingame was the man He was aft
crward as nearly every one knows
the American minister to China and
the author of the agreement known as
the Burlingame treaty lie was at the
time of the attack upon Sumner a rep
resentative in congress from Massa
chusetts He made a speech in which
he said that Brooks entered the senate
chamber and smote Sumner as Cain
smote his brother Abel Mr Brooks
sought some explanation concerning
parts of Burlingames speech but the
Massachusetts man said he would al
low his remarks to interpret them
selves and Mr Brooks sent him a
note a very polite note which read
as follows
Sir You will do me the kindness to in
dicate some place outside of this District
where it will be convenient for you to ne
gotiate in reference to the differences be
tween us
On the same day Mr Burlingame an
swered as follows
Sir Tour note of this date was placed
In my hands by General Lane this after
noon In reply I have to say I will be at
the Clifton House Canada side of Niag
ara falls Saturday next at 10 a m to
negotiate In reference to any differ
ence between us which in your Judg
ment may require settlement outside of
this District
This expected duel was another that
did not materialize It was prevented
by some -means The minions of the
law got in their work and the gentle
men were put under heavy bonds not
to violate the statutes
During the discussions upon the Le
compton measure the Kansas-Nebraska
act and the repeal of the Missouri
compromise measure there was more
acrimony in congress than in any
other era in its existence that is
when folks began to call the house a
bear garden It was almost as bad in
the senate It was during a debate on
the Kansas Nebraska act in the senate
Senator Douglas of Illinois and Sen
ator Green of Missouri poor old Jim
Green who is never spoken of by those
who knew him but with pity for the
unfortunate drinking habit that occa
sioned his downfall had trouble
Green In his speech said that Doug
las did not dare to controvert him It
was a debate in which Jefferson Davis
got mixed up and there were personal
ities all around There was some move
ment toward- duel at that time be
tween Douglas and Green Notes had
passed and everybody expected there
would be something going on at Bla
densburg but friends Intervened and
prevented a hostile meeting
Then there comes to mind that fa
mous Pryor Potter trouble which
grew out of a charge that Potter who
was a Wisconsin man had Interpolated
the manuscript of the house reporter
The quarrel that began over that re
sulted in Mr Pryor who represented
the Richmond Yn district sending
Potter a challenge Potter while dis
claiming allegiance to the code said he
would light Pryor Indoors or out in the
District with bowie knives Pryor de
clined to fight in this way on the
ground that the weapons were barba
rous inhuman and not used among
gentlemen Then General Lander
who was Potters friend offered to
fight Pryor in any way but his offer
was declined on the ground that he
Pryor had had no quarrel with Lan
der
There were other duels expected in
Washington In the dueling days that
never took place but those cited here
are about the most important of the
episodes Washington Post
HIS OPPORTUNITY
He Found It In the Rubbish Heap and
Made the Most of It
How to bridge the gap beivn my
clerks desk and the magic T i was
my serious problem not so my years
ago I was a stock man in a big
railway supply house I felt I knew
the business believed I had selling
ability and the game appealed to me
irresistibly But the sales manager
thought I was too young It was up
to me to prove myself
The opportunity to do so would not
come from him I must find it myself
and I kept my eyes open
One of the eyesores of the warehouse
was a great pile of red glass globes
for brakemens signal lanterns They
had been in stock for five or six years
200 dozen of them
Styles in lanterns for railroad men
had changed Our new models were
all too small and light to make use of
them They were simply rubbish Two
or three times the head of the depart
ment had all but decided to break them
up to save storage room
Going home one night I noticed the
red lights guarding a gas main exca
vationcheap lanterns with red cloth
sewed round the globes signals you
couldnt see a hundred yards away
Thought of our stock of old red
globes came to me and next morning
I took one down to the lantern depart
ment I explained my idea to the fore
man and asked him if he could make
up a cheap lantern for contractors use
He interested himself stamped out
the shapes for two dozen with our old
tools and gave me the cost figures I
added the original price of the globes
plus interest and had no trouble sell
ing the whole lot to one contractor
Canvassing the town I sold twenty
dozen to the gas and water companies
and individual contractors
Then I asked the sales manager to
let me sell the rest of the globes He
was amused but put me on his payroll
and gave me a mileage book and I
started out to prove myself a sales
man
Three weeks it took me to sell all my
lanterns to contractors to railroads
and to gas and water companies The
profits were so good that we added a
contractors red lantern to our regular
line and no one ever questioned my
title to a salesmans territory D N
G in System
Hat Raising In Germany
The etiquette of hat raising in Ger
many is one of those things which may
betray the foreigner into unintentional
rudeness through sheer ignorance A
correspondent knows of a German
lady who was puzzled and hurt be
cause some Englishmen whom she had
met before did not raise their hats to
her in the street until the explanation
came that she expected them to do it
of their own accord by the German
rule instead of waiting for her to rec
ognize them first by the English
These differences of national etiquette
are great pitfalls A converse case
was that of an Englishman staying In
a German town who accompanied his
hosts wife to a concert Walking
home he gave her the inside of the
pavement according to English man
ners but the host who happened to
ree this was rendered painfully sus
ilcious by this unfamiliar attention
London Chronicle
An Up Stroke
Sometimes lightning strikes up in
stead of down if we are to believe a
story told many years ago of a party
of men standing on the porch of a
church far up on the side of a lofty
mountain in Styria They were look
lug down Into the valley below where
a great electrical storm was raging
and with the sun shining upon them
at their altitude were enrapt by the
strange sensation Suddenl a bolt
came up from the valley and killed sev
en of the part Circle
Going and Coming
Whats that noise asked the vis
itor in the apartment house
Probably some one in the dentists
rooms on the floor below getting a
tooth out said his host
But it seems to come from the floor
above
Ah Then its probably the Popleys
baby getting a tooth in Philadelphia
Press
The Tramps Excuse
Benevolent Man who has given a
tramp some work Youre working
slowly my man Tramp Im trying to
spin It out Who knows when I shall
get any more Meggendorfer Blatter
lfJT
Strange Doings
Of Animals
RESIDENT ROOSEVELTS
P criticism of the so called na
ture fakir writers has had
one unexpected result It has
produced a crop of stories about the
strange doings of animals all labeled
as true and some of them accompanied
with affidavits The students of ani
mals do not all agree about the
amount of Intelligence the latter pos
sess John Burroughs says The wild
creatures get up no private theatricals
for our benefit There are no well or
ganized games there are no arts and
g fts exhibitions There Is only a
world of unreasoning wild things be
having as tiey have behaved since
man has known them each after his
kind
That represents one side of the con
troversy On the other hand In defin
ing his point of view as a writer about
animals Dr William J Long who was
criticised by President Roosevelt
says I describe the unusual things
amniiir wild nnimnls and call them
She Knew
Hushand My dear Emily why is it
I am always In the wrong Wife Be
cause I am always In the right
Philadelphia Inquirer
WORM EATING
One of the Trades Classed at Dan
gerous In England
Time was when it was 11 til cult to
obtain an antique oak escritoire or a
set of twelve solid dining room chairs
for anything less than 10 But Nous
i avons change tout cela as they say In
i Brittany Nowadays thanks to the
Indefatigable labors of the worm
eater we can purchase furniture of al
most any age in almost any condi
tion of senile decay for a modest sum
The worm eater Is indeed a public ben
efactor one who docs good by stealth
and would blush to find It fame If he
had not long ago renounced the gentle
art of blushing
He Is usually an elderly man with a
slight limn Is the worm cater In ear
ly youth he was apprenticed to a job
bing house carpenter but by sheer
ability by pluck grit perseverance and
the exercise of those qualities of body
and mind which men call genius he
has risen above his station and the
sphere In which he was born and now
occupies a position In the professional
world as far above that of his original
employer as Portland place Is above
Pimlico He Is not however unduly
uplifted by success He does not de-
unusual and so make you Interested In j sert his old master Nay more upon
the animal so that you will watch I his talents do the finances of his
and find out other interesting things
for yourself
One of Dr Longs stories to which
objection has been made by other natu
ralists tells how a wolf killed a deer by
a quick snap under the stags chest
just behind the forelegs where the
heart lay Mr Burroughs says no
wolf could do it that he would have to
have teeth eight or nine inches long to
reach the heart Dr Long says the
point of a deers heart lies close against
the chest walls and when the walls
sink at each respiration a very slight
wound between the ribs or through the
breast cartilage is all that Is necessary
to reach it
Another story told by Dr Long and
accompanied by a stack of affidavits
recited how a woodcock set its own
broken leg in clay and stood on the
other leg while the clay hardened Mr
Burroughs said this was too much for
him to believe but Dr Long has come
JOHN BURROUGHS AT SIiABSTDES
cabuJ in run WOODS
to the front with the following
testified to by S M Reese of
HIS
duly
Gal-
ion O
One day when hunting woodcock I shot
one which had evidently broken Its leg
There was a bandage around It composed
of clay interwoven with grass or a woody
fiber of some kind The bones seemed to
have knit together perfectly The swell
ing was nearly all gone the bandage was
loose and in my opinion would soon have
dropped off I gave the leg with the
bandage on It to one of our leading phy
sicians and surgeons who expressed him
self emphatically saying that it was a
better job than many surgeons could do
Dr Coyle kept the woodcocks leg at his
office and later exhibited it at a conven
tion of physicians and surgeons of this
county
Dr William T nornaday director of
the New York Zoological park gives
animals credit for the possession of
more reasoning power than Mr Bur
roughs does but he says there is a lim
it to their capacity to reason and he
characterizes Dr Long as a highly
imaginative nature writer But Dr
Hornaday can tell some pretty good
stories himself He relates how a wise
ourangoutang at the Bronx zoo refused
to be trained by his keepers to do any
thing but in playing by himself with a
stick one day he found out after nu
merous trials how to use it as a lever
He was as jubilant over the discovery
as Archimedes himself could have been
Armed with the knowledge of what he
could accomplish with his lever he set
to work to pry apart the bars of his
cage and his scientific propensities
soon had to be curbed
From the zoological gardens in Cen
tral park New York comes the story
of how a baby leopard adopted a baby
sparrow The strange pair seemed to
appreciate each others company and
apparently were a loving couple The
leopard about three months old was
placed in a cage by itself and
given some shin bones of beef with
which it might strengthen Its jaws and
sharpen its teeth A half grown spar
row flew into the iuclosure The leop
ard eyed the bird narrowly for a mo
ment and then crept toward it The
sparrow not in the least afraid began
picking small pieces of meat from one
of the shin bones and the leopard in
stead of gobbling it down at one gulp
began licking the little tiling In a ca
ressing way Then the leopard laid
down and the sparrow flew upon its
back and remained there After a
time it flew away but a little later
came back Every time the bird flew
away the leopard got on to its feet and
watched and waited til the sparrow
returned The bird spent the afternoon
cither pecking about the cage or roost
ing on the leopards back
ployer largely depend Vainly may the
carpenter piece together fragments of
deal into the shape of a bureau vainly
may ho turn empty wden biscuit
boxes into cabinets The public will
not look at his wares until the master
hand of the worm eater has been laid
upon these trumpery modern fabrics
with a mellowing touch that is only
comparable to that of rather Time
AVresting the common ileal armchair
from the clutch of the carpenter our
hero proceeds to paint it all over with
a solution of beer and boot blacking
until it presents the appearance of ex
treme age He then takes a diminutive
gimlet from his pocket and makes a
number of minute holes in the legs and
back of the chair until even an expert
would think that a worm had been
making Its mighty nest for centuries
in the wood from which this article of
furniture is manufactured The worm
is natures lathe lie turns things
while you wait hence the old saying
to the effect that the worm will turn
You cannot prevent him
The chair is now ready to bo dis
played In the window of Ye Olde An
tique Secoude Ilande Furniture
Shoppe Avhere it will be labeled A
Bargain Only fo Supposed to have
been one of the Duke of Buckinghams
family seats And it will eventually bo
bought by a wealthy American million
aire who wishes to furnish his home
in Mogsville Va in a style some three
centuries anterior to the discovery of
liis continent You may wonder per
haps why I have included the J
sion of the worm eater in the list of
dangerous trades The danger with
which the worm eater is invariably
faced is that at any moment he may be
found out and sentenced to six months
hard labor for intent to defraud Tru
ly tis a hard life and worthy of all
your sympathies London Tail or
Talking About the Baby
When the visitors asked the mother
how old her infant was she replied
without hesitation that ho was four
months
Why no he isnt corrected the fa
ther who sat near by he is only three
and a half months
I suppose I shall have to learn it
said the young mother resignedly I
feel that in a very short while I shall
be doing the very thing for which 1
laughed at mothers in the days before
I was married Then when they told
me the ages of their infants in mouths
weeks and days I thought it was su
premely silly When one would say to
me Willie is three months three
weeks and four days old I was wont
to shrug my shoulders and wonder
why she didnt put it in round num
bers Four months would be near
enough in all conscience I would say
to myself
Also I used to hear that Anthony
weighs nine pounds and eight ounces
and that seemed to me a waste of
breath either eight or nine pounds
would have been near enough to have
satisfied any ones curiosity But now
I am deemed an unnatural mother If I
put my childs age or weight in round
numbers and so being corrected I will
tell you that my precious pet who is
the very sweetest thing that ever hap
pened Is as his father amends three
mouths two weeks and let me see
six days old Baltimore News
A Study In Names
The names on the little vestibule
plates in a New York apartment house
are the subject of a letter from New
York in a Vienna paper I had to
stand in the little space the writer
says waiting for some one five flights
up to pull a string which opens the
entrance door This took a long time
and I had opportunity to study the
names of the people in the house
These were some of the names Beck
er Schneider Schuster Kelner Schrein
er Fuhrman and Drucker At first I
thought that the various apartments
were occupied by persons engaged in
trades named on the little signs but
t this was not so Becker bakeri was a
cleik Schneider tailor was a railroad
eruploj ee Schuster shoemaker was a
cigarmaker Kelner waiter was an
electrician Schreiuer carpenter was
a woman a dressmaker Fuhrman
teamster was a barber and Drucker
printer was a painter The person
whom I visited escorted me to the
door and called my attention to one
little sign which I had overlooked It
was Inscribed Baker Thai he said
is the only American family In the
house and they have a boarder whose
name is Carpenter Both men are iron
workers It all made me think I had
been at a labor union convention
Tho State Fair to bo hold at Lincoln
Sopt 2 6 gives promise of being tho
greatest Stato Fair ever held in Ne
braska Secretary W K Mellor in
forms us that the oxhibits in nil de
partments aro very hoavy and promise
to exceed in magnitude thoao of lost
vimr which was the record breaker
heretofore The management have so
cured Chas J Strobol and his airship
which are now making flights at tho
Jamestown Exposition to mako daily
flights nt our Fair Tho stake races
have 19 8 horses named in them as
against 58 named last year and this
feature of the Fair is looked forward to
with great anticipation by tho horse
lovers Fully 25 per cent more swino
will be exhibited this year than last
and all the livo stock departments are
receiving an abundance of ontries If
no more entries of County Collective
Exhibits aro received from now on
Agricultural hall will havo a liner
exhibit than over before Nebraska
has tho best agricultural exhibit shown
at any Fair in tho United Statos and
such an exhibit is a credit to our state
and worth going mites to seo Tho Im
plement section is oven greater than
that of last year and a farmer coutemp
latiug thopurchaso of a piece of mach
inery will securo the best of satisfaction
by comparing the diUoront kinds of the
same machine all of which will be
shown by experts who can teach you
the points of superiority
4
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to
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-
0
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