Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1887 — Lincoln as a “Military Hero." [ARTICLE]

Lincoln as a “Military Hero."

He.never took his campaigning seriously. The politicians’ habit of glorifying the petty incidents of a candidate’s life always seemed absurd to him, apd in his speech, made in 1848,. ridiculing the effort on the part of General Cass’s friends to draw some political advantage from, that gentleman’s respectable b it obscure services on the frontier in the war with Great Britain, he estopped any future eulogist from painting his own military achievements in too lively colors. “Did you know, Mr. Speaker,” he said, “I am a military hero ? In the days of the Black Hawk war I fought, bled, and chme away. I was not at- Stillman’s defeat, but I was... about as near it as General' Cass was to Hull’s surrender; and, like him, I saw the place i very sbon afterward. It is quite cerI tain I did not break my sword, for I i had none to break, but I bent my I musket pretty badly on one occasion, i If General Cass went in advance of me picking whortleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges on tlie wild onions. If he saw any live fighting Indians it was more than I did, but I had a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes; and although I neverfainted from loss of blood, 1 can truly say I was often very hungry. Mr. Speaker, if ever I should conclude to doff whatever ofir Democratic friends may suppose there is of black-cockade Federalism about. me, and thereupon they shall take me up as their candidate for the Presidency, I propose that they shall not make fun of me, as they have of General Cass, by attempting to write me into a military hero.”— Nicolay and Hay's Life of Lincoln. An old alarm has been revived in Germany by Dr. Hulmann, who lectured recently in Halle on the dangers of living in new houses. According to him, the close fitting of new doors and window sashes and floors prevent the increase of fresh air from the outside, while the moisture present in the pores of the new plastering obstructs the transpiration of air through them. For these reasons, which he enforces by terrifying pictures of the consumption of oxygen and the formation of carbonic acid in the atmosphere of inhabited rooms, he proposes that no dwelling should be occupied until its walls have been completely dried out, which perhaps may take a year or two. A part of this period, he thinks, is taken up by the transformation of the hydrate of lime in the fresh plastering into carbonate, which takes place under the influence of the carbonic acid in the" air, and sets free the water of hydration, which fills the pores of the plastering until it has alt evaporated. He proposes that the reaction should be hastened" by burning charcoal in the rooms, so as to supply carbonic acid more readily/ The health authorities of Berlin do not seem to be quite in accord with this sanitarian, for, instead of requesting the owners of new houses to wait before moving into them until the floors and doors have sunk so much as to admit a suitable supply of fresh air, they propose to insist upon the ventilation of all dwelling houses by more efficient methods.