Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 February 1915 — MYTHS HARD TO DOWN [ARTICLE]

MYTHS HARD TO DOWN

ONCE GAINING MEABURE OF B& lief, they last. That Bonaparte Visited London Wan Once Common Talk—Many Iriahmen Convinced De Wet Really Was Charles 8. Parnell. Was Napoleon Bonaparte ever In London? There |s a legend that In 1791 hr 1792 ho lodged in George street, Adelphi. The grandfather of the comedian Matthews, James Colman, who had lived In Leicester sqaare for a century, and several honest tradesmen of the Strand swore that they met him during hia visit of flvte weeks. It was reported that he passed most of his time in walking thropgh the streets. Occasionally ho took a cup of chocolate at a coffee house, “where he occupied himself in reading” and “preserved a taciturnity provoking to gentlemen In the room.” And so there Is a Bostonian of intelligence, who, visiting in a country house in England, swears that he saw train after train go by carrying Russian soldiers. He knew the uniform and recognized it. Another Intelligent Bostonian has a friend that happened to be at Archangel, where he saw Russian troops embark. What would life be without the myths and legends? During the Boer war there were Irishmen in Ireland, and possibly in this countiy, who believed that De Wet was no less a personage than Charles Stewart Parnell. The two bore a facial resemblance, and some declined to believe the story of Parnell’s death. There are Georgians who will swear to you on the honor of a southern gentleman that Marshal Ney was not shot to death as in Gerome’s picture; that he came to Georgia, led the life of a planter, prospered and died in bed at a good old age. It is easy to convince many that the dauphin died in prison. If some heny the claim of the clockmaker, others accept that of Rev. Eleazer Williams. What a stir the article. "Have We a Bourbon Among Us?” made about sixty years ago when it was published in Putnam’s Magazine! And in 1854 Rev. J. H. Hanson published “The Lost Prince,” proving to his satisfaction the identity of Louis XVII and the blameless missionary to the Indians. The common people at Trieste and Pola, during Sir Richard F. Burton’s consulship at the-former city, believed that thfe Archduke Maximilian was not killed in Mexico, but was a prisoner there, guarded by three jailers, captains in the English, French and Austrian navies. And so Nero was not in his coffin of porphyry when his funeral cost two hundred thousand sesterces. He appeared in revolt among the Parthians even while Suetonius, the scandal monger, was alive and writing down his sniggering gossip about the emperors.