Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 June 1885 — MID MERRY ROAR OF GUNS, [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MID MERRY ROAR OF GUNS,

Fair France’s' Great Statue of Liberty Receives a Welcome Most RoyaL A Brier History of the Great Work, with a Sketch and Portrait of the Sculptor. M ' - ‘ , . ; The French war-ship Isue with the Bartholdi statue or! board was escorted up the harbor to Bedloc’B Island, New York, on the 19th of June, • by an imposing naval procession, one hundred steamers and- yachts being In line. Tbe shipping in the liai bor was gayly decorated, and enthusia tic mnltitad s lined the shores of'Long Island and New Jersey. The Isere dropped anchor amid the thundering of cannons, the blowing of whistles, and tne playing of bands. Two hours later the trench naval officers landed at the Battery and were escorted by a military' procession to the City Hall, where a banquet was given, Mayor Grace presiding. (

The Statue’s History. * The history of the great undertaking which Will give New York Harbor the largest statue in the world begins nearly ten yesrs ago, when the first steps were taken in the matter by a body of distinguished Frenchmen, enthusiastic lovers of liberty, whom its ori.inator and creator then interested in his noble conception. These gentlemen formed themselves into a society called the Union Franco-Americaine de France, and held a banquet Nov. 6, 1875, to inaugurate the project M. Bartholdi's design was enthusiastically approved, and a subscription for the erection of the statue begun. The city of Paris subscribed $2,000, and in five years France had subscribed, chiefly in small sums, the $250,(100 necessary for this purpose. Another banquet was then held in the French capital, at which an address to the people of the United States was adopted, recalling the alliance of France with this nation in the cause oil liberty during the Revolutionary War,and embodying sent, imentq. ex pressive of their hearty accord in the maintenance of democratic principles of government. Work on the colossal statue was promptly begun under the superintendence of its designer, who has witnessed its completion. Its Site. Springing up from the waters of New York Bay, near the center of the harbor, and commanding an unobstructed view out through the Narrows to the ocean, Bedloe’s Island is an especially favorable site for the erection of a beacon-light that shall at once guide the mariner to a safe haven and symbolize to the emigrant when he first reaches our shores the idea of liberty which has been so largely instrumental in bring-ng him hither. The island itself is much larger than appears either from the New York shore or from the lithographic pictures of statue and island which have recently been scattered over the country. It has an area of four or five acres, and will doubtless I be a delightful breathing place for the city resij dent, and a Mecca to the xvohder-huntingcoun-I try visitor, when it has received the last beaui tifying touches of the Pedestal Committee and i is returned to the Government. The foundation on which the pedestal is to rest is a vast mass of gravel and sand ancf lime, ninety-one feet square at the base, sixty-seven feet square at the top, and fifty-two feet ten inches in height It rests on a bed of gravel some twenty feet below the surface. The Statue Itself. The statue itself is 151 feet high, made of copper and iron, and weighs nearly 200 tons. An elevator and a stairway will ascend from the | base of the pedestal up through the statue to j the head, whence the stairway will continue through the uplifted arm to the torch held in ! the hand. " Upon the small balcony bei neath the torch there is standing room for fifteen persons. The height of the entire affair Is reckoned as follows: Height

if base of foundation above high-water mark, 8 feet; height of foundation-mass, 63 feet; height of pedestal, 117 feet; height of statue, 161 feet. Total, 329 feet. This raises the torch several feet above the pinnacle of Trinity Church spire, the loftiest edifice In the city proper, and makes it nearly as high as the water-tower on the bluff near High Bridge, which Is the highest point above the sea-level in the city. An incomparably beautiful view will be had of the harbor, the city, and the surrounding country from the apex of the statue. The Sculptor. The distinguished French sculptor, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, by whose hands the repousse statue of “Liberty Enlightening the World" has been shaped, was bom at Colmar, in France, and is abont 60 years of age. As a pupil of the famous Ai y Scheffer, his artistic ability was recognized in the bas-relief of

“Francesca di Rimini,” executed in 1852. His name ivaa first brought into prominence, however, in the United States in 1872, when his well - known statue of Lafayette was forwarded as a gift from the people of France and placed In Union Square, New York City. At the Centennial. where he was one of the French Commissioners, he was awarded a medal for the exhibition of the bronze statues of "Peace,"' “The Yonng Vine Grower," and “Genius in the Grasp of Misery.” He is also a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in his native country. The rumors which were afloat not long ago that Secretary Manning’s tenure was only temporary are set at rest by the action of the Secretary in renting for four years the house of the late Alexander Kay, on the northeast comer of F and Twentieth streets. ; * “Dutch treating" is the fashion at Washington. Ladies and - gentlemen bny their own theater tickets and pay their own car fare, or if it be a question of pionics the ladies furnish the solid and the gentlemen the liquid refreshments. The man who has no rights is the man who lost his right arm and limb in the late war.