JjsV.
10 Conservative *
A HKITISH aiONUYMAKKK'S I.IFK.
( Mil. MOHTOX. )
[ Fr iii thu "Wi'stminntor Uir/.uttu. ]
People have been asking who was this
, T. T. Morton whoso will , bequeathing n
quarter of a million to the Moravians ,
nothing at all to the manager who had
been with him nearly forty years and
had helped him to make his fortune ,
10 to his secretary and daily compan
ion , and 125,000 to missions for evan
gelizing Chinamen , has been so much
discussed. The will has been called ex
traordinary.
Those who were acquainted with Mr.
Morton and hardly any one had more
than an acquaintanceship with him
think it remarkably characteristic of the
man. He was a native of Aberdeen ,
and of the old Puritan typo , a rigid Sab
batarian , a hard man , as it seemed to
most people , but strictly honest , exact ,
just ( as he understood justice ) , without ,
so far as could bo known , a particle of
imagination and without sentiment ,
excepting his love for his mother ,
in whose grave ho desired to bo
buried. He had no money to begin
with , but ho could not help making
money just as rich Quakers have so
often made it because he had no means
for spending any more than a very
small portion of his income , except by
giving it away in charity , and for this
his rigid conscience could find only a
few deserving objects. His business as
an export oilman , an importer of sar
dines , and a maker of jams and pickles
had prospered greatly , but his money
grew in many other ways. He bought ,
at something like prairie value , a large
tract of They don Forest ( which nowa
days wo should consider the lord of the
manor had no right to sell ) , and he had
every tree cut down , the laud ploughed
up , and rows of plain square brick
houses built thereon. Ho had not the
least idea that they were hideous , and
he was sure that they would bo drier
with no trees near them. Ho read the
Times newspaper and the daily reports
of his business , which were as complete
and exact as method could make them ,
and excepting these he probably never
read anything else but his Bible and
books of religion. He was not , how
ever , a man who made a profession of
his religion , or talked of it , nor did ho
talk of his family or his home.
For a good many years he lived in a
cottage overlooking Epping forest and
drove through the forest morning and
evening four or five miles to and from
Lough ton station , but he did not seem
to care in the least for the beauty of
the forest , and it was commonly said
ho never had asked friend or acquain
tance within his doors. Unlike many
men who have amassed large fortunes ,
he did not appear to toke pleasure in
working long hours at his business , and ,
in fact , for a good many years , was
little there , but ho had a great faculty
for making other people work , and in
organization , method , punctuality and
exactitude he excelled painfully. Ho
had quite an army of young clerks in
his ofllces , and it used to bo said that
they were not even allowed to go out of
the office to wash their hands without a
written permit , made returnable in a
certain number of minutes , which were
not to bo exceeded by a second. Yet
people stayed for a long time in his ser
vice , although except as a servant it
would be hard to imagine anyone living
with him. Mr. Morton always paid
rent on the day it was due , and he was
among the few landlords who require
payment of rent on the clay it is due ;
but , as he used to say , if the agree-
meiiHs to pay on a certain day honesty
requires that it should bo paid on that
day. If the best customer ho ever had
had deducted the odd twopence or four-
pence in paying an account of several
hundred pounds , he would have been
dunned every day until it was paid , but
then he himself always paid the odd
penny. If ho had been asked why he
did not leave anything to his manager
and others in his employment he would
have said : "Why should I ? I pay
for their services an agreed price , as I
pay my rent , and as I pay for the sar
dines I import. If I am to leave money
to one set of people with whom I deal
why should I omit the others ? " The
annuities of 25 and 50 each which he
left to several widows and spinsters are
to bo absolutely forfeited in the event of
the bankruptcy of the annuitant , which
seems as if in possible cases it might be
a great hardship , but Mr. Morton would
say that people must bear the consequences
quences of their own misdeeds , and in
his mind bankruptcy was almost , if not
quite , criminal. He was certainly not a
lovable man , but it may be taken also as
certain that every clause in his will had
been carefully thought over , and was
designed to carry out what he believed
to be his duty in disposing of his wealth.
Annexation and expansion , destiny
and duty , are now synonymous terms in
the language of jingoism and according
to the lexicographers of McKinleyism.
The bill of sale from Spain to the
United States of eight or ten millions of
savages , under existing conditions and
regulations for revenue raising , must
have affixed to it a twenty million dollar
lar stamp.
Expansion among the inhabitants of
the moon may now be in order. That
luminary recently suffered an eclipse.
It is only twenty-one hundred and sixty
miles in diameter or a little more than
one-fourth the diameter of the earth.
How any patriotic moon-citizen can re
frain from preaching the annexation of
a few stars or planets , now under the
dominion of the despotic sun , it is diffi
cult to understand.
In the glamor
TWO I'KKSIIJKNTS. . . b . ,
of the excitement - i
ment caused by President McKiuley's
patriotic utterance that the time had (
come , "under the providence of God , "
when "wo should share with you in the ,
care of the graves of the Confederate i
dead , " it should not bo forgotten that
over eleven years ago one of the greatest
of our presidents voiced a sentiment of j
love for the common country as lofty as '
has ever been spoken , and showed by
acts as well as words the breadth of his
patriotism. In Juno , 1887 , President
Cleveland , in a letter to the Philadelphia
Brigade , regretting his inability to at
tend ' 'a reunion of Confederate soldiers I
of Pickett's division , who survived their
terrible charge at Gettysburg , and those , '
of the Union army still living , by whom >
it was heroically resisted , " said : (
"Tho fraternal meeting of these soldiers - j
diers upon the battlefield whore twenty-
five years ago , in deadly affray , they
fiercely sought each others' lives , where |
they saw their comrades fall and whore '
all their thoughts were of vengeance and
destruction , will illustrate the generous
impulse of brave men and their honest
desire for peace and reconciliation.
The friendly assault there to be made
will be resistless , because inspired by
American chivalry , and its results will
be glorious , because conquered hearts
will be its trophies of success. There
after this battlefield will be consecrated
by a victory which shall presage the end
of the bitterness of strife , the exposure
of the insincerity which conceals hatred
by impressions of kindness , the condem
nation of frenzied appeals to passion for
unworthy purposes and the beating
down of all that stands in the way of
the destiny of our united country.
While those who fought and have so
much to forgive lead in the pleasant
ways of peace , how wicked appear the
traffic in sectional hate and the be
trayal of patriotic sentiment. ' '
Mr. Cleveland showed his faith
long ago in the Confederate soldier by
placing him on the supreme bench of
the United States , by seating him in his
cabinet , by sending him to the foremost
foreign courts , and by giving to his
charge and keeping numerous other
high places of trust and responsibility.
Honor to McKinley for his magnanimity
and patriotism , but let us not forget the
man who first after the Civil War
recognized the South as a component
part of this country and Southern sold
iers as distinguished and honored citi
zens of it Nashville American.
Every day every intelligent and well-
disposed citizen ought to perform some
act for the betterment of his fellows.
The altruistic impulse is the consum
mate fruit of a Christian civilization.
It can find ample fields for its exercise
in the United States , in Nebraska , even
in Otoe county , and its work should al
ways begin at home.
