Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1886 — Dickens’ Affront to the Secretary. [ARTICLE]

Dickens’ Affront to the Secretary.

Charles Dickens, when he first visited ■;he United States, in 1842, was received with prodigal attentions. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore vied with each other in showering adulation upon him, and the doors of the most aristocratic mansions opened wide to receive him. Plays were written and performed in which he and his most prominent characters were personated true to nature. He was overwhelmed with invitations to balls, dinners and receptions, and the highest social honors were showered on him, which he received like a conceited coxcomb, and repaid by writing a slanderous account of his tour. When in Washington he held a daily levee at his hotel, and the Secretary of War, calling to pay his respects, heard him say, while waiting in i the ante-room: “My hour for receiving iis past.” That night, at a reception at the White House, he told his friend, Christopher Hughes, to inform the Secretary that he was then willing to be introduced to him. “Tell him my hour I for receiving him is past,” was Mr, i Spencer’s reply.— Pen: Perlcy Poore in Poston Budget. Colonel Byrne, surgeon in charge of the hospital at the Soldiers’ Home in Washington, has extracted from the neck of an old soldier a ball which had been there since the battle of second Bull Run, and was well encysted. The young king of Siam is a reformer. He punishes all officials who are found guilty of accepting bribes. „