Senator Douglas Monument

OCTOBER 1, 1864.]

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

635

a chat with him. I had been absent, however, for two or three weeks, with a few congenial friends, among the trout-streams of Sullivan and Orange counties (0 ! Callicoon and Mongaup ! would I were luring " the speckled" from your swirling, murmuring, bubbling, sunny and shady bosoms to-day!), and it was a week or more after my return when, walking down Broadway one lovely morning, I overtook my friend, Mr. Hart, a few paces from his Store, walking slowly between two friends.

" How are you to-day?" I said, as usual, when-ever we encountered each other ; but he looked pale and sad, and did not instantly respond; so I added at once. " but I am afraid you are ill ; you don't look at all well!"

" Haven't you heard .of my terrible accident?" he asked.

I explained that I had been out of town for several days, and since my return had been very busy, and had therefore had no time to call at his store.

He, upon this, parted his frock-coat in front, and directed my attention to a protuberance above his right groin, to the extent, I should say, of a medium-sized musk-melon.

"About two months ago," said he, "in walking down to the store in the morning, I happened to step upon a piece of banana-skin, slipped upon it, and fell suddenly to the pavement. I got up in a moment, and felt no pain, but only a little annoyance at the ridiculous figure I cut and the laughter of the passers-by.

" The next day, however, I became sensible of a dull, heavy sensation in my right groin ; and that night, on examination, I found exuding from an al-most imperceptible orifice a whitish fluid. This continued to increase, day after day, with additional pain, and as it issued it ossified—turned to bone—until it has reached the enormous size you see. Is it not awful to think of?

" To-morrow morning Dr. — and Dr. — [two of our most distinguished surgeons] are to perform the operation of excision, which I'm told is not a very painful one ; at any rate, I am willing to undergo almost any thing to have it cut off."

Two days afterward, as we passed the bazar, we saw that it was closed, and the black and white crape upon the door-handle and the following announcement explained the reason :

" Closed in consequence of the death of the proprietor."

Mr. Hart had died under the operation !*

And this incident brings us to the illustration of a " Considerate Man," who, if he had preceded Mr. Hart on the fatal morning of his fall, would have saved him from that and the terrible catastrophe Which ensued.

We were walking in the same street one day with the late Mr. Joseph Curtis, and remarked that every now and then he would pause, and with his cane knock from off the pavement a peach-skin or some other slippery rind of its kind, saying, at the same time,

" Lewis, whenever you see any thing like that lying on the walk kick it into the street: it may save many an accident—perhaps a human life."

Here was a Considerate Man.

It was the same spirit of considerateness which prompted him, he afterward said, never to notice any bodily infirmity in persons whom he met ; to pass on the right side, or sit on the right side in a rail-car, of any one afflicted, for instance, with those painful blood-red " marks," forms of grape-hunches, etc., which are so often seen to disfigure the human countenance. And we may add that it was the same spirit which prompted him to invent the chairs which have prevented, since then, the achings of thousands upon thousands of little children's backs in the Public Schools; and how to hold, use, and keep clean and neat their books, so that daily use might not render them distasteful in their externals.

We have never forgotten the first two lessons as above imparted by a Considerate Man.

We shall speak, it may be, of the Conscientious Man hereafter.

VERY PUBLIC WHITEWASHING.

" IN the days of some time ago," when one of the publishers of this journal was Honorable Lord Mayor of Gotham, a most amusing scene was enacted in front of the City Hall, of which there are two original witnesses, the very first who saw its commencement.

The late Charles M. Leupp (so long the near and prominent neighbor of the publishers hereof, in the adjoining "Swamp") was crossing the City Hall Park, in company with "the present writer," one summer morning about eleven o'clock. We had been "laughing consumedly" at the airs of a tall, " shabby-genteel" apple-seller at a table by the gate; a man who looked like a seedy minister of the Gospel, or a disciplined Quaker "out of meeting:" "Here is an article of apple which we can put to you at two cents ; but those in that pile can not be afforded under three cents, for they are of a very superior quality," etc., etc.

Well, as we neared the City Hall we beheld and 10! a great blue-breeched black man, with a pail of lime-water and a whitewash-brush in his hand, was bedaubing the southeast basement-corner of that beautiful edifice (of brown stone, as every body knows) with his plastic fluid. He hadn't given more than four or five " dabs" with his broad splasher (the stains remained there for years, and may be faintly seen there now for aught I know) when ; Leupp asked him:

What are you doing that for ?"

" Goin' to whitewash de basement all in front." "Who told you to do it ?"

" Dere was a man on de corner over dar whc hired use to do it las' night. He guy me two dollars and a half to begin; and he's gwine to git me.

* Few of my city readers but will remember the cast of Mr. Halsey, father of three opulent and well-knows metropolitan merchants, who slipped upon a niece of or ange-peel, and was so seriously injured that he was com- pelled to keep his apartment for fifteen years! A very active old gentleman too, who suffered only from this ter rible casualty.

twenty dollars when I finish de job. Take me 'bout a week, I reckon."

By this time several people had gathered round, and the news had been carried in to the Mayor's office that "a big niXXer outside was whitewashing the City Hall!"

His Honor came out, and, looking with wonderment through his gold spectacles, saw that it was even so, and ordered the sable artist to "hold up."

" Can't do it, massa; it's a 'big job,' and I've been part paid: goin' to have some every day tel I get twenty dollars."

And on went another spattering splash with his broad "instrument," while he smoothed down the liquid with professional pride.

After a while " necessity was laid upon him," and he was compelled to desist ; not without much grumbling, however.

"What'st any body's business ef I do de job, and do it good as I kin ? I told de man I would, an' I oughter ! He said it was a dirty place, outside and in, and wanted cleanin' out !"

Some wag of a partisan, who "belonged on the other side," had started the poor fellow on a mission of "cleansing the Augean stable ;" and much sport did the commencement of the operation create in the minds of all fun-loving Gotham.

Leupp never forgot this scene " to his dying day," and he could describe it better than any other one man who saw it : the obstinacy of the operator, his disregard of remonstrance, and his disdain for the laughter which was echoing from the by-standers who were witnessing his labors—O ! it was very funny !

SPEAKING of Mr. Leupp, it may truly be said that no man more thoroughly appreciated "a good thing." Would that I could once more hear him describe a scene which he once witnessed at Blossom's old celebrated hotel in Canandaigua !

Lobsters were a great rarity at that time in the western part of the State of New York, and were not frequently seen even in its loveliest village ; but Blossom, who always would have, by hook or by crook, every luxury upon his table which could be obtained in the markets of New York, one day had consigned to him some choice lobsters. He had them attractively presented upon his "full-spread board," where to some of his guests they were a curiosity—to one, especially, a penurious old fellow from the neighboring "country,' who asked:

"Mr. Blossom, what's them red critters with the big claws ?"

" Those are lobsters, Mr. Blank, a very great luxury. Try a piece of one: they are rather difficult to manage at first, but when you come to the juice you'll say you never tasted any thing more delicious!"

His guests laughed, for they " understood" Blossom ; and while he was waiting to dress one of the "red critters," he drew off a claw. and presented it to his country friend.

The man had but two teeth in his cadaverous jaws ; but he took the claw, and began to mumble and manipulate it.

"It's ruther hard, Mr. Blossom," said he, the "beads" beginning to appear upon his wrinkled forehead.

" Yes : I told you so," said Blossom ; "but when you get to the juice, as I said, you'll admit that you have been repaid for your trouble."

By industrious drilling he finally established a hole, a fact which was made apparent to his host by the old fellow's manifest satisfaction.

"How do you like it now?" asked Blossom. "Wa'al, it's pretty tough eatin'; but I kinder like the peth on't."

But as Blossom began to crack the lobsters' claws and shell, and extract the peth on 'em," and the laugh ran from one end of the table to the other, " by this and by that," the victim saw the pith of the joke.

TOPOGRAPHY AND PATRIOTISM.

WHATEVER strengthens our local attachments is favorable both to individual and national character. There is a strong and a most important connection between Topography and Patriotism. What do you think our soldiers, fighting for this very sentiment —for a united country and undivided homes, North and South—think of it ? If the one is desecrated, will not the other be jeoparded, if not destroyed? Show me a man who " cares no more for one place than another," and I will show you in that same person one who loves nothing but himself. Be-ware of those who are homeless by choice. You have no hold on a human being whose affections are without a tap-root.

GOOD COOKING AND PIETY.

I DON'T think "Sam Slick" himself, shrewd and outspoken old trump as he is, ever gave vent, in his inimitable way, to a more irrefragable truth than is contained in this short sentence from " Adam Bede:"

" I've nothin' to say agin her piety, my dear, but I know very well I shouldn't like her to cook my victuals. When a man comes in tired and hungry piety won't feed him, I reckon. I called in one day when she was dishin' up Mr. Truman's dinner, and I could see the potatoes was as watery as water. It is right enough to be speritual—I'm no enemy to that—but I like my potatoes mealy. I don't see as any body 'ull go to heaven any sooner for not digestin' their dinner ; providin' they don't die the sooner, as mayhap Mr. Truman will, poor man!"

IT is a rare thing to find proper names introduced into verse with ease and effect ; but you gave, Messrs. Editors, in a late number of the Weekly, a very happy illustration of the "way to do it" in the equally caustic and facile lines of Professor Lowell, of Cambridge. Dr. Maginn, of Biackwood's Magazine, excelled in this kind. Do you remember his broad burlesque "poem" on

"A lady who once lived in Leith, A lady very stylish, man, Who, in spite of all her teeth, Fell in love with an Irishman:

A nasty, ugly Irishman,

A wild, tremendous Irishman,

A tearing, swearing, bumping, thumping, Ramping, roaring Irishman.

"His name was a terrible name indeed,

Being TIMOTHY THADY MULLIGAN ,

And whenever he finished his tumbler of punch, He always wanted it full ag'in:

The boozy, bruising Irishman,

The 'toxicated Irishman,

The great he-rogue,

With his wonderful brogue,

The fighting, rioting Irishman!"

About the breaking out of the present unhappy war, somebody (and I wish I knew his name, for he fully equals " Ensign O'Doherty" of the "Noctes," in his way) wrote the following. Its satire is as pungent as its style is "humorsome." I can only give three or four verses, but they will "tell the story :"

" Two Irishmen out of employ,

And out at the elbows as aisily,

Adrift in a grocery store,

Were smoking and taking it lazily;

The one was a " broth of a boy,"

Whose cheek-bones turned out and turned in ag'in, His name it was Paddy O'Toole,

The other was Mr. M'Finnigan.

"' Bad luck to the rebels,' says Pat,

' For kicking up all this bobbery;

They call themselves gintlemen, too,

While practicin' murder and robbery :

Now if it's gentale for to stale,

And take all your creditors in ag'in,

I'm glad I'm no gintleman born'

You're right, Sir,' says Mr. M'Finnigan.

" ' The nagur States wanted a row,

And now, 'pen me word, they've got in it; They've chosen a bed that is hard,

However they strive for to cottin it;

Now if it's the nagurs they mane,

By "chivalry," then it's a sin ag'in

To fight for a cause that's so black ;'

' You're right, Sir,' says Mr. M'Finnigan.

" ' There's never an Irishman born,

From Maine to the end of Secessiondom,

But longs for a time and a chance

To fight for this country in Hessiandom :

And so if ould England should try

With a treacherous friendship to sin ag'in, They'll be all on one side at once ;'

' You're right, Sir!' said Mr. M'Finnigan."

This is very far from being an easy style, as any one will find who may try to adopt it.

" I WAS over at Greenwood the other day," writes a friend, "and while traversing the multitudinous avenues and side-paths of that most beautiful PARK, rather than 'City of the Dead,' I could not help but think of that expressive sentence you quoted in your last number: 'Death is continually walking the rounds of a great city, and sooner or later stops at every man's door.' 'For each of the two hundred thousand reposing here,' thought I, 'Death has stopped at some door in yonder smoky metropolis, from which even here, in the solemn stillness, like the distant under tone of Niagara, you can hear the subdued din of "multitudes of men commercing"—the roaring of the wheels.'"

Yes: two hundred thousand shells of men and women repose in Greenwood, who but a little while ago were toiling, bustling, scheming, "getting gain," or giving life and grace to society in yonder city. Yet I remember Greenwood when as yet not a single person had been buried in its lovely grounds.

Major Douglas, a graduate of West Point, who had an office at No. 5 Wail Street, started this great enterprise, and laid out the grounds. I was one among some fifty representatives of the daily, weekly, and monthly New York press, who, at the invitation of the Major, visited the place for the first time; and although at that period only the different "points" and paths had been marked out, the grounds and views were replete with natural beauty.

The lunch was "debouched," I remember, upon the banks of " Sylvan Water;" and while we were doing justice to the sandwiches and the Champagne a big bird flew across and disappeared in the foliage. ' Then there arose quite an animated discussion as to what manner of winged creature it was.

" It was a heron," said Charles F. Daniels, then associate-editor of the Courier and Enquirer.

"I think not," answered the present writer, affecting to misunderstand him. "It was not a Scotch herring, that is certain, nor a red herring."

The next morning, in an account of the visit to the future Greenwood, the Courier said that its con-,temporary of the Knickerbocker became so oblivious over the lunch that he couldn't tell a hawk from a Scotch herring!

There was not much to be won at the hands of the witty C. F. Daniels.

"Enough for the present."

HUMORS OF THE DAY.

THAT was a mean Dutchman, that Hans Karg. He had one beautiful Madonna-looking daughter, who no more resembled him than a flower the root. "Hans, how on earth do you manage to keep your potatoes from freezing?" asked a neighbor, one morning. "Fy, I makes Caroline shleep on de potatoes," answered Hans; "dat

keeps dem from freezin' !"

FREEDOM OF THE CITE—Coming to a " block" in the streets every ten minutes.

Old G-- is a great advocate of economy, and never lets an opportunity pass for commending this virtue. Not long ago he was speaking in praise of a couple of young men who roomed together, and remarked, "It don't cost them any thing for dress; each one wears out the other's old clothes."

A gentleman at an inn being supplied with two candles which gave a very dim light, called to the waiter : "Here, waiter, let me have a couple of decent candles to see how these others burn!"

"Barber," said a farmer to his tensor, " now corn's cheap you ought to shave for half price." "Can't, Mr. Jones," said the man of razors. " I ought really to charge more, for when corn's down farmers make such long faces that I have twice the ground to go over."

DRILL FOR MARRIED VOLUNTEERS.

Fall In—To your wife's wishes ; you'll find that you are a gainer by doing so.

Attention—To the children pay a little.

Right Face—Your business, and follow it with all your energy.

Quick March—To the call of duty, and never mind the consequences.

Halt—When your wife points out to you that such and such a course is not the proper one.

Right about Halt—When you are invited by a " friend" to take another glass, and you know that you have had sufficient.

Present Arms—When your wife asks you to push the perambulator for her.

Break Of Attending the public house so much, and keep at home. You will be benefited by it physically, morally, and socially.

Laraby and Joe H-- were neighbors, and, with the exception of an occasional quarrel, always lived in peace. Joe H-- had an ugly cur that trespassed upon the premises of Laraby, whereupon he terminated its existence very suddenly; and when Joe appeared, to wrathfully demand satisfaction or to avenge its death, Laraby sought to escape consequences by pleading ignorance. " If I had known that it was your dog," said he, " I wouldn't have touched a hair of his head; but the fact is," he continued, with terrible earnestness, " I didn't know that he was any relation to you."

An old miser, who was notoriously parsimonious, being ill, was obliged reluctantly to consult a doctor. "What shall I do with my head?" said the old man ; " it's so dizzy I seem to see double." The doctor wrote a prescription and retired. The prescription ran thus: " When you see double you will find relief if you count your money."

A manufacturer has succeeded in making such an improvement in Britannia metal goods that it is asserted he is obliged to warrant them not silver.

A married woman can acquire nothing, the proper tie of marriage making all she has the property of her husband.

What is the difference between a sailor and a soldier ?—One tars his ropes, the other pitches his tent.

" You say, Mr. Snooks, that you saw plaintiff leave the house. Was it in haste ?" " Yes, Sir." " Do you know what caused the haste?" " I'm not sartin, Sir, but I think it was the boot of his landlord." " That will do. Clerk, call the next witness."

" I should like to pay you off," as John Bull said to the National Debt.

"What plan," said an actor to another, " shall I adopt to fill the house at my benefit?" " Invite your creditors," was the surly reply.

Why is type-setting beneficial to a nervous man ?-Because he can compose himself.

Why is the letter t like your nose ?—Because it goes before you (u).

"Ho, Tommy!" bawls Type, to a brother in trade, "The ministry are to be changed, it is said."

" That's good," replied Tom, " but it better would be With a trifling erratum." "What?" " Dele the c."

A gentleman has discovered an excellent way to disperse a crowd of idle boys. He offers to teach them the Catechism, and they instantly run away.

A merchant having been attacked by some thieves at five in the afternoon, said: " Gentlemen, you open shop early today."

Booth, the tragedian, had a broken nose. A lady once remarked to him, " I like your acting, Mr. Booth ; but, to be frank with you, I can't get over your nose." " No wonder, madam," replied he, " the bridge is gone!"

A SCHOOLMASTER'S PROVERB.—The softer the head the harder the work of driving any thing into it.

The man who was lately "struck with a new thought," has resolved to overlook the act, it being the first time, and there is little danger of a repetition of the offense.

Mrs. Partington wants to know, if it were not intended that women should drive their husbands, why are they put through the bridal ceremony?

A mother admonishing her son (a lad about seven years of age), told him he should never defer till tomorrow what he could do to-day. The little urchin replied, "Thee, mother, let's eat the remainder of the plum pudding tonight."

An old maid, being at a loss for a pin cushion, made use of an onion. On the following morning she found all the needles had tears in their eyes.

SNOW-DROP.—Nature's delicate announcement that she is coming out in full dress.

MONUMENT TO STEPHEN A.
DOUGLAS.

IT is known that a monument is soon to he erected in Chicago to the memory of the lamented STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. We are enabled this week to present our readers with an accurate engraving of the monument, from a drawing made directly from the model for the Weekly. Its beauty will he apparent to every eye, and no word of encomium for the artist is necessary from us.

The monument will be one hundred feet high, wrought in marble on a granite base. Through the arched and grated bronze door seen in the engraving will be visible the sarcophagus containing the remains of the departed Senator. Directly over it an eagle with drooped wings is sitting, a sublime emblem of mourning for a dead statesman. The four seated statues upon the pedestals at the corners of the base are designed to represent : 1st, Illinois, at the right, holding a medallion portrait of Douglas; 2d, America, at the left, supporting a wheat-sheaf; 3d, History, at the left in the rear, with tablet and pencil ; and 4th, Fame, holding a wreath and a trumpet.

The bas-reliefs upon the sides of the column supporting pedestal base are designed to represent in panorama the progress of American civilization—more especially in the Western States—with which Mr. DOUGLAS was so peculiarly identified. That which is presented in the engraving represents the life of the untamed Indian, with a woman and papoose, and a hunter dragging a deer up to the door of a wigwam. Following this is a scene representing Agriculture and the first settling of the country —the settler's cabin and family, the plowing of the laud, and the felling of the forest. Next comes a view of Commerce and Science— with caduceus, boxes and barrels of merchandise, locomotive, and telegraph. The last relief is Education—with the (Next Page)