Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1902 — CONDENSED STORIES. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CONDENSED STORIES.

General Fitz-Hugh Lee’s Last Cent That Was Presented to Mrs. Gibbon. Major General John Gibbon thus describes his meeting with General Fitz-Hugh Lee at, the McLean house, Appomattox county, Ya., in April, 18G5, at the time of the Confederate surrender: “Going to the door, I found General Fitz Lee seated on his horse and looking, as I thought, somewhat uneasy. He had been a cadet under me at West Point, and I had not seen him for years. As I looked at him a vision of the past came up before me, and I could think only 6f a little rollicking fellow dressed in cadet gray, whose jolly songs and gay spirits were the life of his class. My salutation of ‘Hello, Fitz! Get off and come in/ seemed to put him at his ease at once and brought him to his feet. He came into the house and told me his story. Before leaving, with a grim humor, he took from his pocket a five dollar Confederate note, and, writing across its face, Tor Mrs. Gibbon, with the compliments of Fitz Lee/ he said, ‘Send that to your wife and tell her it's the last cent I have in the world/ ”

A Wily Boer Commandant. A South African correspondent tells how cleverly the Boer Commandant Kritzingor made use of his knowledge of English in the recent war. On one occasion he galloped up to a blockhouse and declared that he was in command of a couple of squadrons of Marshall’s horse and

was being hotly pursued by Ivritzinger himself. So well did he tell his story that the blockhouses actually held up the advance of the pursuing column of English with a heavy fire. Hiding up one evening to a blockhouse, dressed In an English captain’s costume and attended by two orderlies, he announced that the column to which he was attached would pass through at midnight on a night march and they were on no account to fire on it. He selected the spot at which he would cross and insisted on absolute silence being observed. “1 think we have Ivritzinger cornered now,” he remarked cheerily, “and so ’elp me,” said the crestfallen noncommissioned officer next morning when he found out his mistake, “if I didn’t salute 'ini and the men give ’im a cheer as ’e rode off.”

A Famous Huckster. At the opening performance of “Bcam aire” its author, Booth Tarkington, was pointed out to a certain lady of Malaprop tendencies as tho “famous Hoosier novelist.” “Why lloosier?” she asked. “That’s what they call a gentleman from Indiana/’ was the reply. A few evenings later on being introduced to Mr. Tarkington at a reception this Mrs. Malaprop enthusiastically exclaimed in an effort to be genial, “So you are the famous huckster!”—New York Times. He Knew His Faro. In the preface to a new translation in English of Tolstoi’s “Sevastopol” an amusing story is told of the way in which a German translator handled the inscription to “Anna Karenina”—“Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” That inscription was written by Tolstoi in the ecclesiastical Slavonic used bVHie Russian church, and the translator rendered it: “Revenge is sweet; I will play the ace.” Where Water Was Bcarce. Frederic Yilliers, tho well knowm war artist and. correspondent, declares lie saw the follouing sign in a prominent hotel in an Australian town where water was scarce: “Please don’t use soap when M ashing, as the Mater is required for tea.”

“I THINK WE HAVE KRITZINGER CORNERED NOW.”