Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1887 — HONORING GARFIELD. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HONORING GARFIELD.

The Magnificent Monument Erected at Cleveland to His Memory. It will be a year yet before the Garfield memorial monument at Cleveland is completed and the remains of the dead President laid at rest forever in the tomb prepared for them by the people of the United States. During the last six months there have been many unfavorable criticisms passed upou the committee in charge of the construction of the monument, on account of a radical change made in the original plans whereby the height is reduced nearly fifty feet, thus to a certain extent marring the symmetry and fine proportions of the structure. A correspondent who has just inspected the monument thus describes it:

As will be seen by the cut above, it is very nearly finished as regards its exterior. Its height is 170 feet, and it is surmounted by an open, arcaded, carved-stone lantern. An order ot canopied and traceried windows enriches and breaks the summit of the tower. At its base projects a square porch, decorated externally with a historial frieze. It is divided into basreliefs, which represent the career of Garfield as a teacher, a soldier, a statesman, a President, and his remarkable funeral. The tower rises from broad terraces, which will be reached by wide-spreading steps and thus form a dignified approach to the monument. The porch is entered through a wide and richly decorated recessed pprtal, and witbin is a wide vestibule vaulted in stone and with a pavement of stone mosaic. The memorial shrine occupies the entire space inclosed by the outer circular walls of the tower, and is designed to contain a bronze or marble portrait statue of Garfield standing on a pedestal in the center of the chamber. The statue is made the soul of the monument; the whole design leads up to and is concentrated on this central figure; the monument grows out of this kernel, as it were, and the tower surrounds and rises above its treasure and proclaims it to the world. In a crypt underneath the rotunda is situated the mortuary chapel, and here will be placed the body of the dead President. It is the intention of the trustees to deeorate this interior in a very elaborate manner. It is as yet very incomplete, but, nevertheless, visitors are charged an admission fee of 10 cents to view the structure. This is amusing in the face of the fact that the neople are also paying for the monument. The fund originally raised amounted to $130,758.88, and with interest for six years paid will eventually reach $160,000. Of this sum Dlinois subscribed $5,340.31. Garfield’s body now lies in the public receiving vault ot the cemetery, having been placed there when the government guard was removed.

The wife of the King of Holland has a bad trick of winking her eyes. The courtiers do not know which way to look when the pretty Queen winks at them, and some very sad blunders frequently occur, owing to this physical defect. A young attache of the Belgian minister who returned the Queen’s wink found himself “returned with thanks” to his native land by the next mail, and since then none of the Hollanders has dared to sauce back. This is the epitaph on the tomb of Charles H. Salmon at Drakesville, N. J.: “In memory of Charles H. Salmon, who was born Sept. 16, 1858. He grew, waxed strong, and developed into a noble son and loving brother. He came to his death on the 13th of October, 1884, by the hands of a careless drug clerk and two excited doctors at 12 o’clock at night in Kansas City.” The one prudence in life is concentration; the one evil is dissipation.