Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1883 — Page 3

The Democratic Sentinel RENSSELAER. INDIANA. T. W. McEWEN, - Publishes.

The assessed value of Texas has in* creased more than $100,000,000 within the past two years. The products of the State this year are valued at $119,900,206, against $85,000,000 in 1882. Gen. Crook is now living at Fori Whipple, near Prescott, AT. His home is a pleasant, roomy house of two stories, surrounded by piazzas, and commanding a fine view of hill and. valley. The Indians of the section call him “The Gray Fox.” A Georgia, man, after nearly jerking his leg off trying to get his foot out of a “frog” on- a railway track before an approaching train should reach him, finally had to unlace his shoe, pull his foot out and leave the shoe to be run ever. Just os he got his foot ont safely the train went by on another track, and he used his shoe to kick himself with for not seeing that he was on a sidetrack all the time. The new English Illustrated Magazine is not only going to give Harper and Scribner a tqpsle in the old country, but will beard them in their native den. It will be published in England for 12 cents and in America for 15 cents. Harper's sells for 18 cents in England and Scribner for 24 cents. All magazines there sell by retail for 25 per cent, less than the published price. A thoroughly-good illustrated magazine for 15 cents will be a novelty in this country. There are about thirty blind newsdealers in New York city. Most of them own their own stands and are’doing a good business. Some of them, are so active and dexterous that many of their customers do not suspect that they are blind. It is said that nearly all of them are experts in detecting false coin, and, what is more wonderful, can determine almost instantly the value of most foreign silver coins presented to them by customers in payment for newspapers. An improved ice-freezing apparatus is the subject of an invention for which * patent was recently granted to Mr. John Bowes, of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The invention consists of an apparatus for freezing water by natural cold, the water being fed into shallow pans for that purpose. Steam-pipes are provided for thawing the frozen blocks free from the bottom and sides of the pans, after which the pans are tied up and the blocks of ice are discharged into the ice-house by gravity. A remarkable feat was recently accomplished by John Macdonald, of Dundee, Scotland. His brother Archibald was passing through a field when he was attacked by a bull, and, being a cripple, attempted to defend himself with his crutch. John ran to his rescue, and, having no weapon, caught the beast by the horns, and with one supreme effort gave a sudden twist to the head, dislocating the neck by the the jerk, and killing tfie bull. Mr. Macdonald was at one time champion athlete of Scotland. Sitting Bull is in poor health. He says: “I have been offered much money to travel and to be present at the Cincinnati Exposition, but I never traveled on the cars, and I fear that to do so would make me sick. I now have a lung disease, and fear that in a short while I must go to my fathers; therefors the little time that is spared me I want to spend with my children, whose sight delights me. I have ten children and many relatives, who want me to stay with them. I also fear if I trusted myself from home that the whites would starve me. or that I would die before returning. ” Youthful crime is not winked at in New Jersey by the stern representatives of law a'hd justice. At Paterson, the other day, a 7-year-old boy, while engaged in eating some cake, was approacued by Master Leonard Folden, a 4-year-old sinner in petticoats, who demanded a piece of the toothsome viand. The demand being refused, the hardened youth in kilts whacked the 7-year-eld over flhe head with a stick. He was promptly arrested and taken before a magistrate on a oharge of assault. On account of the tender years of the prisoner, the Justice did not impose the full penalty of the law, but reprimanded him and bound him over to keep the peaee. Next time* that boy may be depended upon to take the cake. A neat little story is going the rounds of the English press about Premier Gladstone’s experience with a wide-awake detective who was detailed to guard him during his stay at Hawnrden Oasfcle. The cattle police force had for some reason been reduced before the Premier arrived there, and the Scotland Yard authorities hearing tikis sent one of their most experienced detectives there, where be

took up private quarters. Shortly after midnight of the first day of his arrival he heard soft footsteps in front of the castle, and, after listening some time satisfied himself that it was an intruder. Having prepared himself for a fierce straggle with a conspirator or a dynamite plotter or something of that sort, the gallant Vidocq rushed out on his unsuspecting prey, but was surprised to find that no resistance at all was offered him. He was more surprised, however, when, holding his lantern to the face of the midnight prowler, he discovered that he had pounced upon the Premier himself, who was just on the point of calling for help. The detective has been recalled to Scotland Yard. Charles O’Conor is said to have recently endured half an hour or so of undiscriminating praise of John Howard Payne. The dreary dissertation led up to a particularly, painful recitation of “Home, Sweet Home,” with interjected comments and ejaculations of praise. “Don’t you think that is a masterpiece ?” the elocutionist inquired quite rapturously. “I do not,” was the blunt reply; “it is doggerel, and you would know it if you had any judgment at all abou-t poetry. ” There is nothing more nonsensical in the whole history of literature, the venerable lawyer is represented as saying, than the fame given to Pavne for those rhymes. “There isn’t a thought in them worth preserving beyond the old and worldwide one of the sweetness of home. There isn’t any excellence of language or structure. The piece as a whole is on a par with the sentimental songs oi the negro minstrels. The tune is all that has kept the words from oblivion, and that was an old Sicilian air, stolen by Payne. Unrewarded genius? Payne hadn’t any; and if he was able to make a fair living, as he did, out of his common place writings, he got all the reward that he deserved.” If the number of deaths caused by recent earthquake and volcanic eruptions in Java should prove as great aa it is stated—a hundred thousand or thereabouts—it is doubtful if history reoords any equally-calamitous oonvul' sion of nature. The earthquake of Lisbon, en Nov. 1, 1755, caused tbe death of 80,000 persons; and the great earthquake which occurred in Sicily in 1693, killed just double that number. Another formidable earthquake was that of Riobamba, in 1797, which swallowed up fully 40,000 human beings; and the mortality resulting from the two shooks in Calabria, in 1873, was exceedingly great, though there seems some doubt about the exact ’figures. The most formidable volcanic eruption mentioned in history is beyond all doubt the great eruption of Vesuvius, described by Pliny, which buried Herculaneum and Pompeii under the layers of ashes and lava which covered them for centuries. The fact that the volcano and the earthquake combined their forces to heap ruin upon the unfortunate people of Java explains the exceptional mortality caused by the recent terrible visitation, which in destructive force and intensity may be compared to the violent cataclysms that so often labored the surface of this planet in prehistoric times.

A Niee Boy.

“Nice child, very nice child,” observed an old gentleman, crossing the aisle and addressing the mother of the boy who had just hit him in the eye with a wad of paper. “How old are you, my son ?” “None of your business,” replied the youngster, taking aim at another passenger. “Fine boy,” smiled the old man, as the parent regarded her offspring with pride. “A remarkably fine boy. What is your name, my son?” “Puddin’ Tame!” shouted the youngster, with a giggle at his own wit. “I thought so,” continued the old man, pleasantly. “If*you had given me three guesses at it, that would have beeu the first one I would have struck on. Now, Puddin’, you can blow those things pretty straight, can’t you?” “You bet!” squealed the boy, dfelighted at the compliment. “See me take that old fellow over there!" “No, no!” exclaimed the old gentleman, hastily. “Try it on the old woman I was sitting with. She has boys of her own and she won’t mind. ” “Can’t you hit the lady for the gentleman, Johnny?” asked the fond parent. Johnny drew a bead and landed the pellet on the end of the old woman’s nose. But she did mind it, and raising in her wrath soared down on the small boy like a blizzard. She put him over the line, reversed him, ran him backward, till he didn’t know which end of him was front, and finally dropped him inte the lap of the scared mother, with a benediction whereof the purport was that she’d be back in a moment and skin him alive. “She didn’t seem to like it, Puddin’,” smiled the old gentleman, softly. “She’s a perfect stranger to me; but I understand she is the matron of h Truant’s Home, and J thought she would like a little fun, but I was mistaken.” And the old man sighed sweetly as he went back to his seat. He was sorry for the poor little boy, but he couldn’t help it.— Drake's Magazine. » Capt. Richard King, the cattle king, pays taxes on property in Neuces county, Texas, valued at a million dollars.

THE BAD BOY.

"What is this I hear about your lather creating a panic in a dry-goods store,” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he took a butter tryer and run it into a pumpkin- a few times. “They tell me that he had about a hundred female clerks treed on the shelves and on the counters, and all of them screaming bloody murder, and that a floorwalker hit him over the head with a roll of paper cambric, and somebody turned in a fire alarm. How was it?” “Well, if you will keep watch for pa, at the door, I will tell you about it,” said the boy. “Somebody has told pa that I was at the bottom of the whole business, and when a man loses confidence in his boy, and rolls up a trunkstrap and carries it habitually, it stands a boy in hand to keep his eye peeled. Yon see, pa lias been in a habit lately of going to the store a good deal and lallygagging with the girl clerks. Any girl that will smile on pa, and look sweet, catches him. and he would sit on a stool in front of the counter ten hours a day, pretending to want to buy some kind of fringe, or corsets, or something, and he would fai»ly talk the aim off the girls. Ma didn’t like it at all, and she told pa he ought to be ashamed of himself, cause the girls was only making a fool of him, and all the people in the store were laffin at him, but pa said for her to shut her yawp, and he kept on trying to find excuses to go to the store. Ma told me about it, and she felt real sorry, and, by jinks, it made me mad to see an old man, old enough to have gout or paralysis, going round mashing clerks in a store, and I told ma if she would let me I would break pa up in that sort of business, and she told me to go ahead and make him jump like a box-car. So ’tother day ma gave pa a piece of ribbon to match and a corset to change for a larger size, and a pair of gloves to return because the thumb of one of ’em ripped off, and told him to buy four yards of baby flannel, and see how much it would cost to have her seal-skin coat relined, and to see if her new hat was done. Pa acted as though he didn’t want to go to the store, but ma and me knew that he looked upon it as a picnic, and he blacked his boots and changed ends with his cuffs, and put on his new red necktie, and shaved hisself, and fixed up as though he was going to be married. I asked him to let me go along to carry the packages, and he said he didn’t mind if I did go. You have seen these injy-rubber rats they have at the rubber stores, haven’t you ? They look so near like a natural rat that you can’t tell the difference unless you offer the rubber rat some cheese. I got one of those rats and tied a fine thread to it with a slipnoose on the end, and when pa got into the store I put the slipnoose over the hind button of his coattail, and put the rat on the floor, and it followed him along, and I swow it looked so natural I wanted to kick it. Pa walked along smiling, and stopped at the ribbon counter, and winked at a girl, and she bent over to see what he wanted, and then she saw the rat, and she screamed and crawled up on the shelf where the boxes were, and put her feet under her, and said: ‘ Take it away! kill it!’ and she trembled all over. Pa thought she had gone into a fit ’cause she was paralyzed on his shape, and he turned blue, and went on ’cause he didn’t want to kill her dead; and, as he walked along, the rat followed him, and just as he bowed to four girls who were standing together, talking about the fun they had at the exposition the night before, they caw the rat, and they began to yell, and climb up things. One of them get on a stool and pulled her clothes tight around her ankles, so alive rat couldn’t have got in her stocking, let alone a rubber rat, and the girls all squealed just like when you tickle them in the ribs. Pa looked scared, as though he was afraid he was breaking them all up with his shape, and he kept on and another flo. k of girls saw the rat, and they jumped up on the counter and sat down on their feet, and yelled ‘rat’ Then the others yelled ‘rat,’ and in a minute about 100 girls were getting up on things and saying ‘shoo,’ and one of them got on a pile of blankets, and the pile fell off on the floor with her, and the men began to dig her out. Pa’s face was a study. He looked at one girl, and then at another, and wondered what was the matter, and finally the floOr-walker came along and see what it was, and took pa by the collar and led him out of doors, and told him if he ever came in there again he would send the police after him. I had gone by the time pa had got out on the sidewalk, and he picked up the rubber rat and found it was hitched to his coat, and he went right home. Ma says he was so mad that he stuttered, and she thinks I better board around for a day or two. She tried to reason with pa that it was intended for his good, to uhow him that he was making a fool of fiimself, but he does not look at it in that light. Say, do you think it was wrong to break him up that way. He was going wrong entirely. ” “Oh, I don’t know. You and your ma are the best judges. But I would have liked to see them girls climbing ujj the side of the store. But what is the trou- . ble with the minister?” said the groceryman. “He was in here this morning with the tail of his black coat sewed up, and when I as'ked him to sit down he said he was stauding up almost entirely now, and when I asked him if he had seen you lately, he said he had, to his sorrow, and he never wanted to see you again. I hope you have not done anything you will be sorry for. ” “It wasn’t me at aIL It was Duffy s dog,” said the boy, as he broke out with a laugh. “You see, tbe minister felt as though he had been cross to me, when I asked questions of him, and he met me on the streets and apologized, and said, hereafter he would try to show a Christian spirit, and would answer any questions I might ask him. So I began to ask him how he thought it was that Daniel had such control over the lions when they cast him into the den. I told him I thought Daniel had chloroform on his handkerchief, and when the lions got a sniff of it they didn’t want any Daniel in theirs, but he said that wasn’t it. He said it was the power of man over the brute creation, and showed the efficacy of pray or. He said

Daniel prayed three times every day, and then looked the lions right in the eye, and a lion wouldn’t have gall euongh to eat a man that looked straight in his eye. To illustrate, he said he could look a vicious dog right in the eye and the dog would turn tail and run, and just then we passed Duffy’s, and the dog barked and growled, and the minister said he would demonstrate to me the power of the human eye over the brute, and he went right into Duffy’s yard. Well, I know that dog, ’cause Duffy used to raise melons, and I went right up a tree. I didn’t want that dog to think I was trying to play any Daniel business on him, because every little while Duffy has to take a file and pry pieces of pants out of that .dog’s teeth, so I got upon a limb. The dog looked at the minister a minute, and the minister looked at the dog, and when the dog began to lick his chops I says to myself, ‘Daniel, you better be getting hence,’ but Daniel didn’t get hence till it was everlastingly too late. But I guess he would have saved his eoat if he hadn’t tried to pull the dog over a picket fence. The minister is usually a very deliberate man, but when the dog began to tangle his teeth up in his coat tail, he felt that it was good to be somewhere else, and he begun to go* away to look some other dog in the eye. I guess Duffy’s dog is not the right kind of a dog to look in the eye. I think some dogs is different about being looked in the eye. The minister looked like a flying trapeze performer when he come over that fence. They needn’t tell me our minister never belonged to a gymnasium, ’cause he couldn’t get over a fence that way, and always have been a good little boy who never stole melons. I could tell by the way he got over the fence that his neighbors tfsed to raise melons when he was a boy. Well, Duffy was taking a nap, but he woke up and came out and called the dog off, and the minister went off with his hand on where his coat was tore, and when Duffy chained up the dog I came down. I am not ydt convinced about that Daniel business, and until the minister demonstrates it I shall hold to the chloroform theory. And so the minister wouldn’t sit down. I thought that dog’s teeth had been filed.”— Peck's Sun.

A Millionaire’s Meanness.

A very unpleasant story is told of Stewart’s dealing with the man who furnished the marble. According to report, the contract was made for a certain price. It was during the hard times, when everybody was scraping and worrying, and the contractor soon found that he was not only not going to make money by the operation, but was likely to lose everything he had. He laid the facts before Mr. Stewart, who coolly replied that he. had nothing, to do with that; that, if affairs had gone in another direction, so that the contractor wsuld have made treble or or quadruple what his anticipation was, he, Stewart, would have been no way benefited, but would have been bound by his contract. Later on the contractor came to him and told him that he lad spent every dollar he had and he had yet much to do. Whereupon Stewart said that he would advance him the money upon a mortgage, and did so. The man went on and completed his agreement, and then, never dreaming that Mr. Stewart cared to hold the quarry, went to him hoping to be thanked and have things made easy, instead of which Mr. Stewart told him he must have either his money or the quarry. The contractor told his wife of it, and she said: “Why, nonsense, Mr. Stewart canUot be such a man as that. I will go down with you.” They went together, and, as the gossip runs, Mr. Stewart’s response to the womanly interest of her husband was so brutal that the man fell dead in the office. How much truth there is in this story I do not know, but it is generally believed, and I have heard it in many places. If it is true, it is simply an illustration oi the fact that with Mr. Stewart at all times and in all places business was business, when he gave he gave, what he loaned he loaned, but what he advanced on a mortgage he held unless the money was repaid. —Boston Herald.

Topnoody Squelched.

“My dear,” said Mr. Topnoody to his wife, “do you want to go to the boat race at 3 o’clock ?” “No, I don’t. I’ve been working in the kitchen all morning and I’m tired, and, besides, you know as well as I do that I don’t like athletics in any shape.” “Of course, my dear, you don’t; bul your tongue is so athletic I didn’t know but that you might want to give it a chance to—” “Shut up, Topnoody. I won’t stand it.” “Sit down, love.” “I’ll do as I please.” “Will you go to the boat race, dear ?" “No, I tell you.” “Wliv not, my dear?” “Topnoody, I despise puns, and yon are a pnn, but 11l use one to tell you why I won’t go. When you were a beau of mine years ago I liked you because I didn’t see you very often, but now, when there is barely a trace of youi former self, and I have to have you around always —to take in a beau trace every day, so to speak, it makes me .want to break somebody’s skull, and—” Topnoody felboff his chair in a faint. — Merchant-Traveler.

How to Use the Magic Paper.

For taking off patterns of embroidery, place a piece of thin paper over the embroidery to prevent soiling, then lay on the magic paper, and you put on the cloth you wish to take copy on, to embroider, pin fast, and rub over with a spoon handle, and every part of the raised figure will be shownti on the plain cloth. To take impressions of leaves on paper, place the leaf, smooth side up, on a sheet of this paper, cover with a piece of waste paper, and rub as before. Upon removing you will find a beautiful impression of the leaf or fern. Beautiful designs may be made in this way, with the different variety of leaves and ferns, by blending the different colors, similar to spat tar work. —Dr. Chases Receipt Book.

RED HOT.

Extracts from Ben Butler’s Speech to the Democratic Convention of Massachusetts. No Wonder the Republicans Want to Get Bid of Him—How They Disfranchise the Poor and Treat Their Prisoners. With every emotion of sensibility I receive your kind greeting. I have come obedient to the call of the convention, through your committee, to say a few words which may aid in your deliberations. By your appreciative kindness a year ago I was presented as your candidate for Governor to the suffrages of the Commonwealth. The people of the Commonwealth, all who were in favor of reform, of good-government, of the honor of the old Commonwealth so far as they were then instructed, ratified your nomination at the polls. It seemed to me that to a deliberative assembly, representing the roform element of the Commonwealth, that reform element which has always In every day and in every year had its seeds firmly planted in the Democratic heart, I should give some account of my stewardship. The tale may be dry and uninteresting, but it is necessary that at some time it should be spoken. I had intended to have given Rto you and to the people In a letter accepting your nomination If I had been away, but as it is you must bear the infliction. As you remember, I examined into the legislative work of the Commonwealth somewhat in my inaugural address to the Legislature. I recommended therein many changes, some wise,. I know—and some, for aught I know, may have been otherwise—but not one of those recommendations, no, not one, was passed by a Legislature of the Commonwealth which sat a longer time than any other Legislature ever sat before, and much longer, I hope, than any other will ever Bit again. Why, there were some recommendations so obvious that they didn’t even dare to consider them. I recommended them to pass a law protecting the passengers on railroads against the Insane, wicked and malicious attempts of those who would put obstructions upon the rails, which might be the cause of the slaughter of hundreds of innocent women. It was a recommendation from tho executive. Of course it would not pass. They had pretended for years, if the constitutional restriction didn’t bind them, they would be glad to relieve the people of the Commonwealth from paying a poll-tax as a qualification for suffrage. Their best orators had so declared. Their ablest men of the olden time—when they had able men—sp declared. In view of the general feeling that this anomaly, that a man's vote should depend upon his ability at one part of the year to pay in a sum of money, should be wiped away, and, to get rid of the constitutional defect, I advised a plan which would allow the Legislature to do what I supposed they would wish to do when they had an opportunity. They said they doubted Its constitutionality. Our friends in tho Legislature then said: “ Very good, let us put the question to the Supreme court” —a Supreme court of their own choosing, not mine, or there might have been a different choice. They refused it. That great question of the constitutional rights of the people they would not submit to the Supreme court. But they said: “We will have a proposition to amend the constitution.” They were not chary, however, in submitting questions to the Supreme court. When the third-rate lawyers that composed some of the committees of that Legislature thought that the executive had erred and did not know when he could or could not make a veto upon a measure, they rushed with that question to the Supreme court, and the answer you remember. Having then voted down legislative relief on that subject, they next proceeded to vote down any prospect to the people of a constitutional amendment, and so now the great Republican party with which I acted—and acted in goeffi faith in giving untrammelled suffrage to every negro In the South—denies it to their brothers on this soil. Going then a little furthor Into Legislative questions. They presented me several bills to sign—during the Legislative session nine or ten of them. I examined them, and found they were so loosely drawn and so incomplete that they didn’t even express what the men who drew them meant they should, and I said then to the Chairman of the Committee: “Do you really want this bill In this way? Don’t you see what It is? It is not what you wanted, if I can gather what you want from your bill. Now, I can veto this bill and everybody will see the intention, but this Is a good thing that you want now. Ask to have this bill sent back and I will send it back, and then you can change It and It will go through.” And I had to do that during the session top times over. Then they sent me all sorts of bills, and I vetoed them thirteen times, one after the other, and one was so bad that when It went back to them they couldn’t find but four Republicans mean enough to vote for it. And all the rest of the thirteen were sustained except one, and that was one on the last of the session, the purpose of which was to give their clerks and Sergeant-at-Arms increased pay. I have no trouble about my election; but I pray you, fellow-citizens, go home to your towns and send me some Legislators who know their own mind, and do not have to go to the Republican State committee to find out who they are. I don’t care what a man calls himself. If he calls himself a Democrat you know he Is right. If he calls himself a Republican, ten to one he Is right; but find out. Are you in favor of having legislation which will bring this Commonwealth back to where she was in the days of our fathers in economic administration, In efficiency of administration, and in purity of administration? If you can find such a man vote for him; let us have him in the Legislature, for, as I do not want anything wrong, I believe other men of fair mind, and who are not partisans, will agree with me in all administrative measures; and the reason why I so believe is that, while I have had eight gentlemen out of nine of my Executive Council who are very bitterly opposed to xne politically, and In my nomination of officers not unfrequently differed from me (after they had got their Instructions from the State committee), I have a right to say and do say—and they are here in town to contradict me if I am wrong—that upon all financial matters In regard to tho Commonwealth, there never has been one word of difference between us—not one. Therefore send me men to aid me, to hold up my hands. You know the Bible tells us that when a man grew old in battle ha had to have his hands held up. I have held up my own for a year all alone. Please, now, give me somebody to back me. Now let us come to some questions of administration. I have not done much, I agree. Would I could have done more. I found tho Governor in his office like Gulliver in the hands of the Lilliputians, with a pin at every hair of his head—and perhaps the reason they didn’t hold me any better was because I didn’t have any more hair on my head. I found the office emasculated. Not only the Governor was unable to do anything, evefl to appoint the colored messenger at his door, without the advice and consent of his Council, but, with one or two exceptions, he could remove nobody, and (so far as the ingenuity of Republican lawyers and the laws could go) they didn’t mean to let him do anything else. I want to say In all fairness—because I want to be fair if I know how—that, while many of my predecessors were not had men at all, yet the found themselves in these Legislative tolls, spread about them by the Commissioners, who actually governed this Commonwealth, and they didn’t see any way to get through them, because it would require them to break with their party. The first institution to which I was obliged to turn my attention was the State’s prison. It was in this condition. The men were in a state of revolt, and had been for six months. We were told that they were dangerous, unless seventy-five or 100 of them were.kept in solitary confinement, or chained up by the hands to posts; that there was danger in that institution; that it could not be carried on without these measures, and my predecessor had instructed the Warden of the institution to do what he pleased with these men. I heard their complaints, and considered them.

I gave directions that their statements should be allowed to come to me without anybody’s seeing what was in the letter. 1 said to the Warden: “Do that, sir, and then you shall have a hearing on every complaint if you desire it.” Weeks passed and he did nothing. I saw him again and said to him: “ Sir, my orders are generally obeyed. Those men must have leave to write to me. Let them write, seal it up and send it to me sealed, and don’t make any mistake about this.” He replied: “Well, you will have little else to do than read complaints.” I thought that was very wonderful. It seemed to me that he had given himself away by that very saying. I said to him: “I have clerks, and I will have more if necessary, and I can take care of my own correspondence. Let them come.” He brought me in a large number of sealed letters, sent to his office by inmates, to be forwarded to me, unsealed and read by somebody, and then sealed up again and sent to me as though they had not been unsealed; and they did it so bunglingly that it didn't require even an old lawyer to see it. I took those letters into my Council Chamber; I showed them to the Council; I stated the facts as I have stated them to you, and I said, “ Examine these letters, and if they have not been tampered with I will beg Warden Earle’s pardon." And out he went. The Legislature appointed a committee to investigate him and one to see why I turned him out; but, for some reason which you will appreciate without any words of mine, that committee never had a meeting. The investigation never has taken place and never will. I should be happy—l will turn away from this canvass—to attend that investigating committee, read those letters to the Commonwealth, and hear the story of those men—of the cruelties, oppression and wrongs. I know they are convicts. I know they are bad men. But they are men who are under the protection of the law just as much as you and I. They are bound to go to the State prison, there to work at hard labor for a term of years—nothing more, nothing less. They are not there to be maltreated, to be whipped, to be hung up without trial and without the knowledge of somebody, any more than you or I are. Well, I thought that would meet the commendation of all good men. But I learned that while that was a good action, it came from a bad motive —my motive was to secure their votes. I then looked about for somebody for the office of Warden, who would make the prison what a Massachusetts prison should be, and I sent for one of my personal friends, who was then kindly engaged in an enterprise of great moment to me, and I begged him to accept the office, dropping my enterprise. He demurred somewhat. I I asked it of him as a personal favor to go there and redeem that State Institution, and he did, and was unanimously confirmed by a Republican Counoil. And In closing this subject let me say he walks through that prison day by day, quite without guard and without weapons, as safe as I can walk around this convention, where there are thousands of kind hearts and strong hands to protect me here from any harm. The nest thing to which I turned my attention was the Insurance Department. I became convinced upon evldenoe that there was something wrong. I entered into a laborous investigation of that evidence. I summoned before me the Insuranoe Commissioner. I was instantly attacked upon that, and while I was so attacked, while the investigation was going on, the Secretary of State came to me and said: “ Governor, it is made your duty by custom to issue a fast-day proclamation.” I * said, “Mr. Secretary, I am exceedingly busy. I don’t see how I can sit down and write one.” It was a new species of writing to mo, but a thought ocoured to me. Now, I will sete whether it is simply an honest or a factious opposition to mo. I won’t write one myself. I went back and looked over the proclamations of many of my worthy predecessors. I found Christopher Gore, who was a lawyer, a very pious and devoted man, strange as that may be. A Senator from Massachusetts, he gave Gore Hall to Havard College. Now I said this man’s proclamation will just suit every true man and true Christian In the Commonwealth—and it justs suits me. Only there Is one thing that has happened since Gore’s time, about which I think something better be said, and that was that the preachers, forgeting the origin of that to a Massachusetts man almost holy day, had been accustomed of late ts> use It for political sermons and for all mannor of talk, except religion. And so I put In this sentence substantially: “I do exhort the ministers on that day to feed their flocks with God’s divine words.” I then scratched out Gore's name and put In “Benjamin P. Butler,” and issued it. I watched with curiosity to see how that would be taken. To my utter astonishment the whole press fell afoul of It. It was had grammar, bad religion, had politics, had everything. I didn’t say anything, but waited for fast day. I thought the clergymen would know a good thing when they saw it. But some of tho clergymen read it to their congregations In a sing-song, derisive tone; others thought it so bad they wouldn’t read it all. Others attacked me personally, and I was especially amused by one gentleman in Boston who said that the Governor for the first time had signed himself Governor and Commander-in-Chief, and that that meant If he didn’t obey me that I would come down upon him with my soldiers. But old pher Gore signed himself Governor and Commander-in-Chief precisely as I did. I didn’t after that. And the reason why he Is Governor and Commander-in-Chief is that he speaks in proclamation to all the people, speaking in his civil capacity to the citizens of the Commonwealth and in his military capacity to any forces that may be under his command. I then became convinced that nothing that I could do would please my opponents, and I set about pleasing myself. When I called upon the Insurance Commissioner he wanted time to finish his reports. I said: “I will give you time to finish your fire report.” He was called upon to make a fight by his political associates, but he did not, to their surprise and astonishment, because I could not appoint his successor without the ratification of the Council. Why didn’t he make a fight when he had a right to keep in until his successor was appointed? Simply becauso he knows the reason, and I know the reason. He has been writing a letter lately, and whenever he will write a letter asking me to tell the reason, I will. But I will keep it back now for the sake of his family. Well, then, what did we find in the Insurance Department? Corruption to the very bottom. If there is any more important thing in this Government than that, 1 do not know what it is. We old men Insure our lives in order that those who are dependent upon us may have something after death. The young men in business insure their property and their lives for their own benefit and those who come after them. We creditors have to lend money sometimes, almost the only security upon which is the life insurance' of an honest young man, who, wo believe, will pay us if ho lives and we can Insure ourselves when he dies. The standard of Massachusetts, according to the laws, is higher than any other standard. We require more security, more accurate accounts, more thorough examination, than any other State, and those examinations are required by law to be made very often. I found that those examinations had not been made for years. I found Insuranoe companies that were doing business In this State —foreign companies—that had not been examined for years. I found in the insurance reports many companies eulogized and puffed as being the very best companies to do business with, which not only had not been examined, but some of them had actually failed immediately after those puffs were giveH. I attempted m get a friend who knew about Insurance (I don’t know much myself) appointed. But the Council said no. I then appointed a sterling Democrat whom you all know. All I ask of you is to read John K. Tarbox’s report on these things and then any honest man may vote as he pleases. Again, I found the Woman’s prison in an entirely unsatisfactory condition. I sent and begged another of my friends—a lady of Massachusetts, whom I had seen amid tho smoke of guns and tho bursting of shells, attending the wounded in the field—to do me the personal favor of taking charge of that InstiWon. And,after great deal of persuasion on my part and reflection on hors, she did take charge. And I was but yesterday at that prison with my Council, and I know that I only voice their sentiment when I toll you It is in a thorough condition and under a process of economy that will Bave some SIO,OOO within the year to the Commonwealth.