Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1883 — OBITUARY. [ARTICLE]

OBITUARY.

Leon Gambetta. M. Leon Gombetta, the chief representative of modern French Democracy, died at Paris on the first day of the new year. Deceased was bom at Cahors in 1838, and became a member of the bar of Paris in 1859. At the fall of the empire he was made Minister of the Interior, and in October, 1870, he proceeded to Tours, and was for some months dictator of those provinces of France which remained free from the German invaders. By the death of Gambetta France loses her greatest, if not her wisest, statesman. Seldom has a man dying at ‘the age of 4-1 achieved a more prominent place in the world’s history. He had hardly been admitted to the Parisian bar before he acquired fame as a forensic speaker, and in the year 1809, when he was only 30 years of age, he was immensely popular in the city of Paris on account of his eloquent advocacy of advanced Republican principles. But it was during the dork days of the investment °f_the French capital, by the Germans in 1870, that Gambetta attracted to himself the attention of the world. He was nominated Minister of the Interior in the of the National Defensfe, and exhibited the highest qualities of administrative ability. How he passed the German lines surrounding Paris in a balloon, so as to confer with the Delegate Government at Tours, is fresh in the mind of every reader. He then became almost dictator of that portion of France which was not overrun with Germans. But the raw, undisciplined army with which he sought to drive the Germans from French soil melted awpy before their trained and veteran enemiea From this time on the career of Gambetta has been intimately associated with almost every change in the many changes which have occurred to the French republic. He was a power among the people and in the Chamber of Deputies. Elisha Allen. Elisha Allen, the Hawaiian Minister and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, fell dead at the White House, in Washington, where he had attended the President’s New Year’s reception, the supposed cause of death being heart-disease. Mr. Allen was a native of Salem, Masa, and was in his 79th year. He .was Speaker of the Maine Assembly nearly fifty years ago, and was elected as a Whig to the Twenty-seventh Congress. In 1849 he was appointed Consul at Honolulu, since which time he has been prominently identified with Hawaiian affairs. Mr. Allen possessed the full confidence of King Kalakaua, and was largely instrumental in obtaining, the passage of the Hawaiian reciprocity treaty with this country. - Italian wines are to# good, abundant and cheap this year.