Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1885 — REMINISCENCES OF PUBLIC MEN. [ARTICLE]

REMINISCENCES OF PUBLIC MEN.

BY BEN: PERLEY POORE.

During the Twenty-fifth Congress there came to Washington Dr. Perrine. a native of Connecticut, who was the exhibitor, in the room of the House Coipmittee on Agriculture, of specim ns of tropical fruits and fibrous plants and their fibers. He had collected them while United States Consul at Campeachy, and he had conceived the idea of acclimating them ip Florida. He was an interesting talker, and lie would* give his visitors a vast amount of information, describing the habits of different varieties of useful plants, and demonstrating that the sand barrens of the South, and their impracticable for all other purposes not merely useless but deleterious might be made to produce, by self-propagation, and almost without labor, the various fibrous plants which yield the fibers front which Manilla and Sisal rope, and all the great and beautiful variety of grass cloths are manufactured. The marshes bear one class of plants and the most arid sands another class, and the climate is sufficiently warm through Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carol na, north ns Virginia. It was Dr. Perrine’s strong desire to see those productions introduced into all that section of country, that the decline of cotton, rice and tobacco crops, from exhaustion of the soil, might be made up by this spontaneous and prolific cultivation of those immense tracts now esteemed valueless,giving a ,new and permanent source of wealth and prosperity. It was fpr aid in this great project that he asked of the Government a grant of those same barren lands which some of the officers of our army had pronounced worthless and uninhabitable. With all these memorials of his labor, Dr. Per rine remained nearly unnoticed for months. The North and the South at last' became acquainted with the subject he had so deeply at heart. They saw, as he did, a splendid scheme for the increase of national wealth, by the improvement of otherwise barren soils, for the production of new materials for useful manufactures; and his simple request that he might locate a settlement for tlie propagation of tropical plants in Florida upon Government lands was granted, with the privilege of purchasing any surrounding - lands hereafter when the Indians should be removed and the land and bogs offered for sale at the regular market price. This gave him the right to enter upon the land, and it was all he asked. It was readily granted. Dr, Perrine would not wait for the cessation of Indian hostilities, but went to Florida to commence operations. Unfortunately for him and for science, the Seminoles soon raided his establishment at Indian Key, and the enthusiastic riian was killed, a martyr in the cause of soil culture. Since the War of the others have taken up his labors, and the sands of Florida are beginning to blossom like the rose, furnishing cocoanuts, pine-apples, oranges, and lemons. Early in January; 18(52, a squad of the Baltimore Provost Guard brought to Washington Mrs. Baxley, who had been indiscreet enough to boast, on a Chesapeake Bay steamer, that she was a secessionist, just from Biehmond, where she had kissed President Davis’s hand. When the boalt reached Baltimore she was about to go on shore, when a detective requested her to walk into the ladies’ cabin. On arriving there, she took off her bonnet, and, ripping open the lining, pulled out some fifty letters, saying, “I suppose I may as well deliver up my contrabands, which is what you are after.” The detective was not satisfied, and, sending had her thoroughly searched. The result was that in her shoes and every possible place about her clothing letters were found concealed, while in her corset was a commission from “President” Davis to Dr. Brown, of Baltimore with passes for entering the Confederacy. She was brought to Washington and kept in custody at Mrs. Greenhow’s house, where several other ladies were well guarded. During the cold snap in January, 1852, when the sleighing was excellent, Baron de Bodisco, the Russian minister, rigged out his sledge, and his driver and tiger and furs, caps, etc., all looking like bears and wolves. So extraordinary a spectacle attracted the attention of the boys, negroes, etc., on "Pennsylvania avenue, and, as Kossuth was known to be in town, covered all over with mustaches, with a retinue all rigged°out in style extraordinary, the boys and blacks set up over Bodisco the cry of “Kossuth,” “there’s Kossuth,” “hurrah for Kossuth.” Th : s was more than human nature could endure, and Mr. Bodisco fled in a rage. / Gen. Bn tier’s oratory, which consisted of a torrent of words poured forth as if he loved talking for the sake of talk, reminded those who had been abroad of Lord Brougham, who with the rapidity of a hawk, would lay violent and resistless claws upon a bewildered opponent. Yet, with all his eccentricity of manner, there was about all he said evidence of brains—suen a solidity of information on the most heterogenous and Out-of-the-way subjects perpetually peeping forth, and such endless play of fancy, that he extorted admiration when he failed to win respect. Flattered, feared, and spoiled, he hurried along, goaded by some inexorab'O demon, who forbade all quiet to his victim, and impelled him to incessant occupation of tongue, hand and brain, from morning to night, and frequently all night long.