Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1892 — GEORGE WASHINGTON. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

INTERESTING INCIDENTS OF HIS LIFE. Washington and the t jßpy— How Ho Subdued a Whole Band of Rioters—The Great Man's Mother—Remembering Hla Two Pretty Slater*—Portrait of Washington, Etc. Our Country'* Sire. It has now been ninety-three years since the death of George Washington. During that long period many brilliant reputations have shone upon us for awhile, only to fade away and lapse into oblivion. His name rotains all its Interest for us, and probably more people have been particularly occupied of late with his career, its relics and its records, than evor before. At the great sale of Washington momentos, held in Philadelphia, the prices paid even for trifling objects ouce possessed by the 'great man and his family were extraordinary. A legal document relating to the execution of his will, which his hand had never touched, brought fifty dollars, and an autograph letter eiglity-llve. A list of his slaves, written and signed by his own hand, brought four hundred and fifty dollars. Two of ills memorandum books closely written brought eight hundred dollars. His family Bible was sold for seven hundred and sixty dollars, and books from his library, containing his signature or that of his wife, cNmmandod prices varying from sixty dollars to one hundred and fifty dollars each. Pieces of piano music which had been played by Miss Custis brought considerable sums, and a dinner invitation was sold for eighteen dollars. The sale attracted universal attention, and every one lamented that the whole collection had not been bought by Congress ahd deposited at Mount Vernon,

where it could have been seen by every pilgrim to that sacred shrine. There is a special reason for this vivid survival of his celebrity, apart from his seivices to his country and his singularly varied and interesting career. From his boyhood to the last week of his life ho was a profuse writer. As soon as he could write well enough, ho kept a book into which he copied anything that pleased or Impressed him in his reading, and carefully entered lilb early cipherings and surveys in a book that is preserved to the present day. Duiing his first journey In the wilderness of Virginia, when he was but 16, ho kept a pretty full journal of its events, though the task could not have been easy on such a tramp. In a similar way, but in greater detail, he recorded his early marches and campaigns, one of which was published both in England and America. From the day when he took command of the revolutionary army at Cambridge, his own letters and orders, his reports to Congress and other official documents are the imperishable record of Ills public actions, as well as the most correct exhibition of his character. His own writings must ever remain the truest record of his life. Nothing can refute or supersede them. His confidential letters to his brother, to his secretary, to his steward and to his servants, as woll as the more formal epistles addressed to the President of Congress, all £ell the same story and exhibit the same man, one who was intent on discharging every trust, and fulfilling every duty with punctuality and completeness.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.