Shipherd's Love Letters.

New York, 1895

The love letters that Shipherd wrote to Mrs. Crowell are a strong link in the scoundrelism of the whole case. Shipherd had had at least two wives before he became infatuated with Mrs. Crowell, or rather before he hypnotized her. One of these he divorced in Utah by a power of attorney, and then married the other, and it has always been a mooted question among lawyers whether he had not committed bigamy. The last woman that he is known to have married lives on Staten Island and, so far as any one knows, is still his wife, in law. If Shipherd has married any other women the fact has not appeared, but the language in some of his letters creates the impression that if he has not had other wives he has been a villainous woman hunter. Mrs. Crowell regards him as her "husband" and he recognizes the validity of it in his reply to her letters, but that may be based on their free love ideas rather than on the substance of a ceremonial marriage. She said to him as they parted in Philadelphia and he promised her a letter: "A piece of paper instead of my husband! No. I want my husband!" Then he writes to her from Atlanta: "A great many times those words have come back to me, and I have found my respect for them steadily increasing." * * "And then like a flash from heaven came back your words to me, 'A piece of paper instead of my husband! No. I want my husband!' And all my soul cried out, 'Those words are true."' * * "The words above all others in this No. 6 that my soul responds to this morning are these: 'When I am with my husband I feel as if I would like to shut out the world and be alone with my dearest, dearest.'"

Shipherd's ideas of a husband's responsibilities were well illustrated by his defence to an action brought against him for the recovery of property by the children of his last (legal) wife. He offset the children's claim to the property by charging them with the support of their mother, his wife, for a number of years, and for her hotel expenses at Washington during the time of his trouble with Secretary Blaine. Shipherd was beaten in this action. He could not have the services and comfort of a wife at some one else's expense, with the sanction of the court.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, June 21, 1895, p. 4.

JAKE SHIPHERD'S LOVE LETTERS.

New York, 1895

Three that He Wrote to Mrs. Crowell.

SHE KNEW HOW TO LOVE

Called Her His "Dainty One," "My Own, My Only Own," "Loveliest Love," "Love of Loves," "Lovie" and "Lamb," "Lovie Sweet" and "Sweetest."

"HUSBAND" AND "WIFE."

THE FARMER gave last week but an outline of one or two letters written by Jacob Rudd Shipherd of Richmond Hill to Mrs. Lydia S. Crowell. We lay before the reading public to-day three of Shipherd's letters to Mrs. Crowell, taken from full stenographic notes of the trial of the divorce suit. In one or two particulars these letters may seem offensive, but we have no right to mutilate them, as they are part of the court record; and if mutilated Shipherd might claim that the omission did him an injustice, so they are printed verbatim. The letters are but three out of a lot. Some of the statements in them may not seem entirely clear in the absence of Mrs. Crowell's letters to which reference is had. It seems that they posed as husband and wife. Mrs. Crowell's terms of endearment for Shipherd must have been extravagant and ravishing, but they can only be guessed at. Shipherd's terms of endearment are soul stirring and heart crushing. She was his Rock and his rest in her was better than ten millions of money could make it. She was his "My Dainty One," his "My Own, All My Own, My Only Own," "My Lamb," "Lovie Sweet," "My Love," "Sweetest," "Sweetest, Loveliest Love," and "Best Loved," "Lovie," "Dearest Dearest," "My Love of Loves," and so on.

As Crowell still has a suit pending against Shipherd for damages for the loss of Mrs. Crowell's affections, the letters will prove important evidence for Mr. Crowell.

The letters follow:

ATLANTA, Oct. 8, 93.

"The happiest woman in this world." "The happiest woman in this world." My my though, wouldn't that be almost too happy, dearie? She doesn't say she is that — she only says she would be that if. If — that is, she thinks she wd be that — if. If — well, that's lovely reading anyway. It sort o' warms m' heart & things. I think it brings a shine into m' eyes. I know it makes me glad like solid gold.

I went to the university at 4.30 & got back 2 hours later. Then I went to the Cong. Ch. to Chr. Endeavor. The minister was there & made me talk again, & after the preaching he & I talked some more, & some more brethren came up to introduce themselves & hope I would keep coming right along. One of them saw me there once in May & had remembered it ever since. Pa makes nice boys & girls, dont he, dear? After church Pa sent me to studying on 271 & remarked that if it was his wife & sister he'd left in Phila he sh'd go round and see if there weren't some letters. Nuff ced. I went, and there they were — 2 letters & a big pkg. There is a bright electric light within 10 feet of 271, & a broad stand-up desk to lean on. It only took 1½ minutes to absorb both letters, & 2⅛ seconds more to get into the box.

O my lamb! It was lovely of you — but this Pig had other views. He wanted her to buy her a syringe or some such thing for herself out of those virgin bills — it adds inches to the feel of his ears to have her little savings lavished on him this way. Now if I send her $2 special will she please got her a syringe for me — just for me, lovie sweet? Tell me true & nice my dainty one.

It makes me glad without surprise that you like the city of your kin. It is the smoothest, most restful and peaceable settlement of size I was ever in. I was sure you must like it — but left you free to find your own impressions. Mayhap you & I will settle there or near there yet & put on (both of us) the plain dress and say "thee" and "thine" and so drift out together upon the sleeping sea. Would my love like it?

Every word you write sets my heart a-glow, sweetest. And the full, clear name at the end shines like a star cluster in my eyes. My own, my own, my only own — and all my own.

Oct. 14, '93.

Your No. 6 gladdens me this morning — but, O my loveliest love, every day I find your words talking for me better than my own. When I was coming away and you were rebelling — not naughtily, only helplessly — and I tried to comfort you with some reminder about letters, & you retorted indignantly, "A piece of paper instead of my husband. No, I want my husband." I thought at first — just for an instant — that you were scarcely appreciating letters.

A great many times since those words have come back to me, and I have found my respect for them steadily increasing, and this morning, after opening your parcel with quivering eagerness & feasting upon every mark of your pen, I lay it down as one famishing with thirst might set down the empty cup in the bottom of which he had found a few trickling drops only, & my soul cries out "And is that all? How am I to live all day on that? and probably must live 24 hours on it? And then there will be only as much more. O this is sheer starvation; and are there weeks and weeks of it yet to come?"

And then like a flash from heaven came back your words to me "A piece of paper instead of my husband. No, I want my husband." And all my soul cried out "Those words are true." The words above all others in this No. 6 that my soul responds to this morning are these: "When I am with my husband I feel as if I would like to shut out the world and be alone with my dearest, dearest."

The greater facts of life are the same, regardless of all time & space & surroundings. To each other we are alone — always, everywhere — what is ours is as separately ours as if God and we alone were alive. If our holy of holies could be entered, there could be no sacredness assured to us. But only God has access there, and he comes in only to cheer and bless and enrich and approve.

The longing we both feel to be absolutely (for the most part) left to ourselves, is only the nimbus of the sun of our joy — a halo surrounding the pure & central shining. It is sweet to be quite by ourselves — alone, alone, alone, alone, in every sense and manner of form. It is pain, a weight, a clog, a stricture, when we are parted in any manner, when any conditions intervene to divide us in any way to any extent. But it is not immeasurable relief to remember that as matter of fact, the most holy place which is ours alone can never be entered by any profane foot or eye or car. That what is truly ours alone can never be shared under any conceivable conditions by any other than our Father alone? And that all these interrupting experiences are in their very nature transient and fleeting — a part of those "light afflictions which are but for a moment."

Were it not so, O best loved, it seems to me I could not endure to live. You have had some hints — the merest hints only — of what I suffered when an infinitely lesser love was — in a manner, profaned and outraged. I had not then learned of the Inner temple of ALL; I did not then know where to take refuge. There are no words to tell of the uplifting of joy I have since known nor of the horrors of darkness out of which I have since been saved. Now love me somewhat as I do not mean less; I only mean that for the first time in my life I seem to have met one who can love as I can love.

Always hitherto I have given dollars for pennies, diamonds for stones — I mean of course outside my own family. Always hitherto, for one reason or another I have been compelled, even inside my own family, to limit my loving, to restrain myself, to forbid myself, to repeat over and over every hour of the day — "Stop here, stop here, stop here." Sometimes I have wondered how God could compel me to desire so much and to forbid myself almost all of it. But never mind now. In you & through you God has shown me so much of present sweetness, such promise of future sufficiency, and such eternal certainty — that I can now wait with such hope and such measure of content as I never knew before I knew you.

We are saved easily by hope, when our hope rises out of sufficient knowledge. Hope that is blind is but another form of desperation. Faith that does rise out of knowledge is but a dream and a snare.

I am glad Father cares. It would be much more agreeable to me to alternate the formal address; I know mother cared, and was not sure that Father did. I have obtruded so much loving upon so many people that I am very timid now. There is a sense in which it is necessary to be "weaned," nor is the experience seriously painful when the conditions are normal; but in the sense in which you cry out, "I shall never be weaned, darling, never," all my soul cries with you. Not only will it never be easier to be torn from you — it must always be harder and harder.

But we may learn & shall learn now (largely) to ignore the conditions of time and space. But for this our whole life wd grow harder & sorer, & wd soon become intolerable. Yes, lovie; please send me one of the photos. I must begin my day's work now.

This will be due in N. Y. at 1 P. M. tomorrow — in good season for R. H. on Monday A. M. O my love of loves.

Oct. 18, '93, 9 a. m.

At the office I found 4 letters waiting for me — four. I had them all for breakfast, and now I sit before my wife's No. 9, No. 10, No. 11 with a sense of wealth unknown before. I will write to Julia to hand you the $2. Let me know that you get it. I could write you pages of history about my care of your husband. If he gets any harm while in my charge it will not be my fault — the first cold night for example, the cold was so unexpected that no one was ready. The next morning at breakfast every one was clamoring about the inability to keep warm. But I wasn't caught napping, & I took care of your husband. I made him report to me every two or three minutes when he was awake. Of course we started with the foot muff. Then came the b-quilt. Next the knee quilt. Then a thin under vest; then thick drawers. Then thin stockings. Then woolen stockings over them. There were a heavy pair of new & handsome blankets & coverlid all the time, but as the night wore on & the cold steadily strengthened I found the man was still a shade too cool, & I bounded out once more. I brought him his brown coat and made him sit up & put it on. He laughed a pile & declared that in all his life he had never worn a coat in this way, but of course I was inexorable; it is easy enough to be flinty when you have a duty to do. His wife was right before me every minute, & I was hard as granite in her presence. There is nothing in the universe (I suppose) so flinty as pure love.

Julia writes that you mentioned the flowers I sent her but gave her none; I don't understand it; As to Sadie I think you are wise to be silent & let things take their course — no effort of ours can change anything and certainly we have no wisdom as to the future. How can we tell whether it is best, she sh'd. go with us or not? And is it not certain that only the best things will be given us? Is not the best good enough?

I have myself thought about a thicker overcoat. It is to say whether it will be needed or not. If I send for it, please pack it in one of those boxes you will find in the storeroom closet: "To whom does that table belong?" What table, dear. "I took charge of the small envelope." Thanks dearie. "Did your umbrella go all the way to Atlanta with you?" I am able to assure you, dear, upon the highest authority that my umbrella did go all the way to Atlanta with me. If you will be good enough to step into my room for a moment I will show you where it stands this moment, just over there in the southwest corner of my room, beside my cane. "Cane?"

Sure enough, your spouse hadn't told you, had he? Well, forgive him, and let me tell you all about it; He moves around more or less evenings, always to the P. O. and 2 or 3 times a week to some public place & felt sort o' unprotected in the dark, besides, he is so clumsy he likes to have something to sound the darker places with, and I told him to go right off and get him a cane, that his wife wouldn't allow the question to be debated, etc. He only hesitated about the expense but when I quoted his wife he knew I was right and said no more. He chose a very substantial hickory stick, closely like one he carries at home, with a round handle. It is handsome and it is strong, and he never goes out in the dark without it. It cost 75 cents & wd. be cheap at twice the money. His father said he'd provide the money (I hear his father is quite well to do; at least in comfortable circumstances.)

"I will have to come back to the thought that everything is right." I wouldn't love if I could do better. I think we have the right to demand always the best; for myself I confess I never came to that thought till I was forced to it by the failure of every other refuge; then I got away from it again directly, and I have got away from it a million times since and I never get back to it till I am driven back to it. Never.

This is the reason I do often hear these lines, "Blest be the tempest, kind the storm that drives me nearer home."

"I hope Pa will solve the lawyer problems and then your mind will rest." No dearest, not then. First because I can't wait. "I want it now." I must have it now. I can't stand on any uncertainty any more. Since I have once stood on the Rock.

Second, because I couldn't rest on any human thing — not for a moment. If I had the new charter now I could not rest on it an instant. If I had ten millions of money besides I couldn't rest on both of them a instant: Since I have found the Rock. Since I have found the Rock I can never rest anywhere else. I do rest now darling, absolutely, utterly.

There are no longer any problems (in the sense) for me. All my problems are solved. "Thy Maker is thy husband." Multiply your rest in your husband by a thousand millions or so — that is what it is to rest in Him. "Will you accept an unlimited number of kisses?" Try me, love. Try me.

————————

When Jacob Rudd Shipherd was first accused of wrongfully detaining Miss Bennett, and when he was strongly suspected of the infamy which was developed in the Crowell divorce trial, the Jamaica Standard's columns were used in his defense. It is said now that money was paid for the use of the paper.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, June 21, 1895, p. 1.

A Student's Love Letter

1895

The apiarist, as well we know,
Will always like the B's.
The sailor never will outgrow
His ardent love for C's.

The millionaire, with pockets full,
His E's will ever prize.
Coquettish maidens find a joy
In always making I's.

Surveyors, bound close by a chain,
Must in the L believe,
While preachers look in for the N,
When one must sing or grieve.

Collectors take care of the O's,
And farmers of the P's.
The actors follow up the Q's,
And ladies love the T's.

Professors, men of letters grand,
To all the Y's are true,
And I, why don't you know, sweetheart,
That I'm dead stuck on you?

— Atlanta Journal.

Old Time Letters

1895

AN EPISTLE WRITTEN NEARLY ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

The Reverential Manner In Which a Young Girl of That Period Addressed Her Father — Proper Way For a Lover to Ask His Sweetheart to Elope With Him.

If the prim Puritan maiden of a century ago did not startle masculinity by wearing bloomers on the public highway, or pompously presiding at political mass meetings, or — horrible to relate — smoking perfumed cigarettes on the sly, she must have been a deucedly charming girl withal. A typical gentlewoman, she commands, irresistibly, more than ardent admiration.

If character can be portrayed in letter writing — and no one doubts the fact — an epistolary message written nearly a century ago by a devoted young Bostonian maiden to her much beloved papa in Philadelphia will afford an intensely interesting study of commencement de siecle womanhood, as it were.

To be sure, the dear young girl who penned the loving message decades and decades ago never dreamed that her letter would be published at the dawn of the twentieth century in a Chicago newspaper and read by the eyes of modern woman, so called. For a fact Chicago was not on the map in those days, and woman — lovely woman — had not been modernized. To peer into this primitive maiden's private affairs really seems a sacrilege. The epistle is, however, so essentially unique, so different from the flippant style of correspondence today and withal so suggestive of the excessive formality and great reverence accorded parents by children in the proverbial good old times that its perusal may be pardonable. In a word, it is the embodiment of filial affection. It would doubtless surprise the average indulgent papa of today, who is quite used to being told a few things occasionally by his "advanced,” all wise daughters.

The fair writer was evidently a young woman of exceptional culture in those early days. Of course she must have been, or did she not reside in the Hub City and eat baked beans? In a peculiarly artistic and legible handwriting the remarkable letter is thus addressed: "Rev. John Murray, to the care of Colonel John Connelly, Philadelphia."

There is the customary heading — "Boston, Feb. 13, 1804" — but the usual salutation of "My Dear Father" is omitted. After this interesting fashion Miss Julia Marcia Murray makes reparation for a supposed slight to her paternal ancestor: "You are astonished, my dear papa, at not receiving an answer to your letter, and I, my dear sir, am equally astonished that my answer written as early as the 8th of January has not yet reached you.

"Yes, indeed, you are entitled to my utmost gratitude, my utmost affection, to my duty, and my veneration, and I should have considered myself inexcusable if I had delayed a day to acknowledge a letter which gave me such heartfelt pleasure. If you have received my letter, you will find in it expressions of the warmest gratitude. It will always, my dear father, make me unhappy to know that you are so, and particularly if I have any reason to suppose myself, even unintentionally, the cause of it. You ought not to be kept in suspense, and I do indeed, my dear papa, consider it a prime duty to attend to you, and I have given a circumstantial account of the school exhibition and other particulars. And now, my dear sir, indulging the hope that I have rendered you easy on the subject of my not writing to you, I will go on to a part of your letter over which I shed many, very many, tears.

"Oh, my father, my heart is indeed filled with tender affection for my dear, my excellent parent, and if my heart be an affectionate feeling heart how could you expect that I should read the following very affecting line in your letter without its being torn: 'Sweet soul, you will not have your parents long?' When I came to read this, I could no longer restrain my tears, so covering my face with my handkerchief I audibly sobbed. Can I endure the thought that those dear, indulgent parents must ascend to the bosom of their God before me? Would to heaven I could continue here as long as I could be useful to them and then wing my flight to the regions of the blessed, where I might prepare garlands of never fading roses to crown them with, but as this is a felicity too great for human beings to attain I must content myself with the lot of mortality and meekly bow my head in pious resignation.

"And now, my dear papa, hoping that you will acquit me of either neglect or inattention to the best of fathers, I repeat again and again that I am your ever affectionate and dutiful daughter,

"JULIA MARCIA MURRAY.

"We have got our buckwheat meal. Mr. Jones and Cousin Mary Allen desire their best regards. J. M. M."

A writer on etiquette of those days tells amorous youths how to write "fetching" billet doux to their ladyloves. Clandestine marriages must have been as popular in the long ago as they are today. At any rate, the writer gives an ideal letter from "a young gentleman, who is in expectation of an estate from his penurious uncle, to a young lady of small fortune, whom he desires to elope with him to New England." After this fashion was the anxious lover instructed in this interesting branch of lovemaking:

"MY DEAR MARIA — My uncle's laying his injunctions upon me not to see you more has only served to add fuel to my passion. I cannot live without you, and if you persist in refusing to comply I am miserable forever. I pay no regard to his threatening when put in competition with the love I have for you. Don't be afraid of poverty. If he should continue inexorable, I have still education sufficient to procure a genteel employment in one of the public offices, where I may rise to preferment. Therefore, if ever you loved me, let me beg that you will not make me any longer unhappy. Let me entreat you by all that's dear that you will comply with my request and meet me at 6 Sunday evening at the back door of the garden, where a chaise and four will be ready. I will fly on the wings of love to meet my charmer and be happy in her embraces forever. I am your dear lover." — Chicago Tribune.

Correspondence

New York, 1895

To the Editor of the Long Island Farmer:

DEAR SIR — Permit me to forward you my complaint. It is for the benefit of the people of our town in general. I wish to complain of the very disgraceful condition of the sidewalks on New York avenue, in wet and snowy weather. There is a pretence of old boards that are loose and rotten, and when one passes over them, the water flies up and spoils more clothes than if the boards were not there.

As this is one of our principal streets, where many strangers pass to and from the trains, they immediately get the idea, what a dirty place Jamaica is. In this respect they are right. But we could have clean and dry sidewalks. Other streets have been seen to by our board of Trustees, but this one has been overlooked. Has some one on this street a "Pull?"

— A TRAVELLER AND TAX PAYER.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, N.Y., Jan. 18, 1895, unknown page number.

Possibly No Newspaper Next Week — High Paper Costs

Maine, 1916

Note: This notice, letter, and editorial concerns high rates for the paper they needed to print newspapers. The publisher of the newspaper, The Fryeburg Post, of Maine, was Libby & Smith. All of this took up a large section of page 1 on Sept. 26, 1916. The letter to their paper warehouse is a reproduction (typewriter face) of what they sent. After the editorial following that is the notice from Libby of returning to a law practice.

Notice from Libby & Smith.

The moral support of our subscribers is earnestly requested at this time. While a final answer to the following letter has not yet been received, there is little encouragement held out. Of course if the answer should prove to be favorable we would be sorry to have troubled our readers with our troubles, but as we are using our last white paper on hand, with no certainty of getting any more, this week's paper may be our last chance to reach our subscribers for the present. The name of the paper warehouse is not printed, as they are innocent in the matter. The mill is the Pejepscot Paper Company.


Sept. 12, 1916.

Messrs.

Gentlemen:

Confirming to-day's interview between your Mr.______ and our Mr. Libby, the only contingency in view to prevent our discharging our crew, shutting down, and merely collect old bills to live on and pay rent until reason resumes sway, is for your mill to furnish our paper at the price named.

That price yields them fabulous profits, yet as conditions are we are willing to pay it.

As for the extortionate price in your last bill, and the fact that they can ship to Egypt the output our Maine papers have printed on during the past twenty-five years, that is for your mill to decide. We cannot submit to it, and must resist by the only course open to us.

If there is a possibility that your mill will break away to this extent from the piratical raid instigated by Mr. Dodge we ought to have this confirmed before making what explanations we can to our subscribers in the last week's papers we have paper for. Also we ought to give our crew notice. Of course if any untoward happening should prevent our reaching our subscribers through our own papers, we must depend on the Portland dailies and one telling another.

With of course many regrets,

Yours very truly,

(Signed) LIBBY & SMITH.


The forgoing letter explains itself. For months every month's paper bill has jumped to a new high level, and no assurance regarding the future. Apparently the only limit on the news paper mills' mad rush for profits is what their customers will pay to avoid suspending publication until prices drop. Congress and the Federal Trade Commission are trying to get the paper mills to do the right thing, and the proposition of the mills is that all white paper for small newspapers shall be pooled into one man's hands, who shall have full charge of distributing it among the papers. This would be a most villainous trust, the very monopoly the International Paper Company has been working for years to bring about. And anybody can imagine the price!

The mills say to publishers, Do not impoverish yourselves, raise your rates to subscribers and advertisers. But we know that our subscribers, at the end of two years' crop failure, are not in position to pay more; also in Maine when the farmers are poor the merchants are poor. Besides, we do not feel inclined to take a hand in this kind of a raid.

The news paper mills have no more right to demand ten years' profits on one year's business than the train crews had to cut off the country's life by suspending transportation, or than the Germans had to sink the Lusitania. Because one has a chance to do a thing does not prove his right to do it.

If this is a year of boom prosperity, it ought to be passed around; not certain ones grab the whole and impoverish the others.

The relations between the news paper mills and the publishers who consume their products are very intimate. Banks in a money scare do not charge their customers the highest panic interest rate merely because they can get it from others; instead of that they protect their customers at a fair rate. And banking is supposed to be the coldest blooded of all kinds of decent business.

If some of our readers are inclined to blame us for this step, we can only urge that the way to overcome a wrong is to resist it, not yield to it. Somebody may get hurt but the wrong will be righted. If one-third of the newspapers of the country would promptly take the course we are taking, instead of impoverishing themselves to enable the paper mill owners to make ten years' dividends in one year, they would be brought to their sense of decency at once, not in a kind way but in the way they deserve.

At any rate, having taken this course, we can only depend on the moral support of our subscribers, whether this altogether wrong situation may possibly be averted, or be over in a fortnight, or last through the war.

LIBBY & SMITH


In the interim until we are able to secure white paper again I shall — resume the practice of law — and will to the best of my ability serve the interests of any client who may employ me for even the smallest business.

Charles Thornton Libby.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 1.

Note: A few of the inside pages have an additional notice:

No Paper Next Week?
Do not fail to read the reason on the first page.

A Voice From The Tomb

1901

More of Marie Bashkirtseff's Interesting Confessions Printed.

Once more Marie Bashkirtseff and her "confessions" are leading topics of interest in the literary world. The last of the "confessions" have just been issued in book form, and they are attracting almost if not quite as much attention as those which preceded them several years ago.

Readers familiar with the literary ideas of 12 or 15 years ago scarcely need be told who Marie Bashkirtseff was. To younger readers the name of the brilliant, erratic young Russian artist, scholar and authoress is not, however, very well known. Although she left no permanent impress on the world of art or letters, her diary, which reveals with fidelity the workings of her heart and mind, will always possess an interest for the student of human nature.

Marie Bashkirtseff was born in Russia in 1860 and died in Paris on Oct. 31, 1884. She was well born and well educated, possessing a knowledge of Greek and Latin as well as of the more important modern tongues. She was a talented painter and in 1878 went to Paris to study. In 1880 she exhibited a picture at the Salon, and from then until her untimely death she worked eagerly at her art. One of her pictures was purchased by the French government.

During her brief career in Paris Marie Bashkirtseff mingled with the brilliant life of that period and numbered among her acquaintances many famous people. She frequently wrote anonymous letters to famous literary men, and the charm and brilliance of the epistles induced those to whom she wrote to sustain the correspondence. The letters which passed between her and Guy de Maupassant, the brilliant romancer, form the most interesting phase of the last "confessions."

Marie Bashkirtseff was a genius in many ways, a painter, a musician, a writer and, above all, a woman of the most intense emotion. It may well be held, as it is by some, that the world lost much by her premature death.

She Rustled

1901

A London paper says that C. T. Yerkes, the American street railway magnate, now in London, recently received the following letter from a young woman:

"Dear Mr. Yerkes — I have seen by the papers how rich you are, and also I have seen your picture, which looks kind. So I thought I would tell you that my parents are poor and depriving themselves of many comforts in order to give me a good education. Among my school friends there is a gymnastic club, of which I am a member, and all the girls wear silk skirts, and it gives me the horrors to feel I can't have one when I hear the fascinating rustle of their petticoats. Would you send me $5 to buy one? Yours," etc.

Mr. Yerkes received the unique epistle from his secretary and, to the latter's astonishment, exclaimed: "Send her the money. It will give more pleasure than if invested in any other way." The money was sent, and the acknowledgment was as follows: "Dear Mr. Yerkes — Thanks so much for the money. I invested it and can now rustle with the others."

A Curious Coincidence

1901

The letters "O N" might be supposed to possess a mysterious charm, as they form the termination of many of the most distinguished names in history. No other letters of the alphabet will furnish so remarkable a coincidence as may be found in the following list made up from ancient and modern names: Aaron, Solomon, Agamemnon, Solon, Bion, Phocion, Bacon, Newton, Johnson, Addison, Crichton, Porson, Buffon, Montfaucon, Tillotson, Fenelon, Massillon, Warburton, Leighton, Lytton, Walton, Anacreon, Ben Jonson, Milton, Byron, Thomson, Tennyson, Anson, Washington, Napoleon, Wellington, etc.

A Greek scholar has called attention to a very curious coincidence about the name of Napoleon. If you take away the first letter of his name, you have "apoleon;" take away the first letter of that word, and you have "poleon;" do this successively down to the last syllable, and you have "leon," "eon," and "on." Put these several words together in this order, Napoleon on oleon leon eon apoleon poleon, and you have a Greek phrase the literal translation of which is "Napoleon, being the lion of peoples, went about destroying cities."

General Grant Proved Poor Prophet

1915

General Grant showed himself a poor prophet in an autograph letter which was sold recently. He wrote the letter to his father from Camp Yates, near Springfield, Ill., where in May, 1861, he was drilling recruits.

"My opinion is that this war will be of short duration," he wrote. "A few decisive victories in some of the Southern ports will send the secession army howling and the leaders in the rebellion will flee the country."

The letter sold for $92.50.


Eating to Grow

A certain Columbus, Ohio, newspaper man is proud of the precocity of his 5-year-old niece. As typical of her mental agility as well as her capacity for humor, he tells the following:

"We were visiting recently at my brother's home. When dinner was called the child politely but firmly announced that she had no idea of dining and would remain away from the table.

" 'Why, Mildred, you must eat three full meals a day if you are ever to grow up and be a lady,' remarked my wife, who happens to be a woman of substantial proportions.

"Carefully surveying her gratuitous adviser, the little miss said: 'Auntie, do you eat four meals a day?' "

Gett Came So Often, Gaigg Just Got Out

Chicago, 1920

Now He's Getting a Divorce While the Getting Is Good

Ludwig Gaigg married Nora Gaigg Dec. 15, 1912.

Last year "Mr. Gett" got between them.

"Forget me, as I shall forget you," wrote Mrs. Gaigg to Mr. Gaigg.

Gaigg took the letter to Judge Sullivan of the Chicago Superior Court and got a divorce.

"We separated Sept. 1, 1919," Gaigg testified. "A man was there whenever I came home."

"Who was he?" asked his attorney, John V. McCormick.

"Mr. Gett," replied Mr. Gaigg. "When I objected, she told me to take my suitcase and get out."

Following is the "forget me" letter that Gaigg said he got from Nora Gaigg, his wife, Nov. 28, 1919:

"Mr. L. Gaigg: You will do me a great favor if you will stay away from me entirely, as I do not wish to see you or have anything to do with you any more. I am thru with you forever and would never think of living with you again. All the love I ever had for you has gone, and I hope you will forget me as I shall forget you."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Feb. 28, 1920, p. 3.

Objects To Boys Sewing In School

Illinois, 1910

We received a very strong letter this week from a mother protesting against her boy being taught sewing in school when the time is needed to each branches more suitable for the scholars, at least the boys.

She says: "I think it's a shame. My son has to put two and three hours a week at sewing when they don't half know their arithmetic. John forgot to bring something to sew on this morning, so his teacher sent him home at 11:15 a.m. to get something to sew on, and as I was not at home he couldn't find anything, and when he went back to school again he forgot it. Well, his teacher got angry and shook him and sent him down to the principal. The principal sent him home, with a note and told him he couldn't come back to school again until his father came with him.

"I think it's an outrage in these civilized times to waste two and three hours a week at something they will never have any use for. I think every mother ought to sign a petition to have such nonsense stopped and to have that time devoted to the need of the times, which is business. I think it a shame taxpayers have to pay for such nonsense."

—Suburbanite Economist, Chicago, Oct. 28, 1910.


His Accent

An American-born girl was boasting of her English ancestry in public, and said: "Grandpa has lived in this country over 40 years, but he's just as English in his accent as when he went to Oxford; for instance," she added, "he still says horanges!" — Harper's Magazine.

No Soda Fountain on U.P. Trains

1911

Recently a story was printed in a number of newspapers to the effect that the Union Pacific would install soda fountains on its passenger trains this summer. Gerrit Fort, Passenger Traffic Manager, has sent out the following slip to all agents denying the story:

"Dear Sir: In response to your inquiry concerning the alleged arrangement to place soda fountains on our trains:

"The story in question is absolutely without foundation, and had its origin in the fertile brain of an Omaha reporter who was short of news on the day in which the story was printed. Yours truly, Gerrit Fort."


Important Things of Life

Holiness is an infinite compassion for others. Greatness is to take the common things of life and walk truly among them. Happiness is a great love and much serving. — Olive Schreiner.


Wifely Devotion

"A man must have so much on his mind," is the belief by which a wife often supports a cheerful face under rough answers and unfeeling words. — George Elliot.


A Cracker Dainty

A friend in the Walton News tells of a visit to Wilkes county, where he was treated to a new dish, "rabbit sausage," which he declared was "simply fine." — Macon Telegraph.

History of the War

1915

"When the history of this war comes to be written," is a constantly recurring journalistic phrase, as if the story of this great conflict could ever be written.

You may be fairly certain that no one under the rank of an archangel, in close touch with omniscience, will ever write the full history of the world war. Down below there isn't the knowledge, and there isn't the time. There will come sectional accounts. But if in the fullness of time a world syndicate succeeds in getting some million tons of print within covers, the public will (one hopes) be thinking of something else. Yet the literature of the war as a personal drama is the domain of the private soldier, and the best letters from the front have been written by the private soldier.

On that side of the literature of war the editor of the Book Monthly has his eye. He is a specialist on the "Epistles of Atkins," and already he has been gloating and gleaning with some thousands of soldiers' letters before him. — London Chronicle.


Magnificent Volume

The most sumptuous copy of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" in existence was recently sent from England to a purchaser abroad. The value of the book is between $5,000 and $7,500. It has been reproduced as an illuminated manuscript on vellum, and the volume is notable as being the entire work of one artist, Alberto Sangorski, who was engaged upon it for 18 months. The title is in pearls set in gold, and the cover is embellished with 214 rubies and 36 amethysts.

Frenchwoman Describes Her Experiences at Soissons

Printed Jan. 1915

Live in Daily Dread of Shrapnel as Bombardment Continues

Edinburgh, Scotland. — A letter has just been received here from a Frenchwoman whose home is in Soissons, long one of the hotly contested points on the French battlefront. She describes to her Scotch friend the misery of he inhabitants of the city. The Germans, it seems, were driven out, but not beyond the range of their big guns. The Frenchwoman did not desert her home. She says:

"We have to remain in our house, for we really could not bring ourselves to leave it and all our possessions, although most of the inhabitants have left the town.

"For three months the bombardment of the town has continued, sometimes for days and nights without ceasing, and then we hide in the cellar — you may guess how happy we are. We simply live in dread of the shrapnel, which is going to fall on our house and set it on fire and bury us in the ruins.

"You have no idea what terrible engines of war the Germans have. Seeing everything around us burn and fall to pieces, we live in a sort of nightmare. Everything in our quarter is demolished. Fortunately our house has so far escaped, though all the tiles are smashed and the windows broken by the force of the detonations. You may imagine how uncomfortable we are in this cold weather, and the terrible thing is that no one can say how long it will last.

"On their way back from the Marne the Germans took possession of all the quarries along the hills to the north, which they had carefully prepared on their way south with concrete and iron, making of them veritable forts. They are terribly clever, and now they are shelling Soissons from the quarries of Pasley, Clamency and Crouy, from which they can dominate all the main roads from the town. There is absolutely no chance of taking them by surprise, because from there they see everything that happens. They have got the light railway to Coucy, which enables them to revictual from the rear. From Coucy and Chauny they have the main lines right to Germany, so that they can bring up re-enforcements as they require them.

"They have driven away all inhabitants, and they take everything movable they come across.

"Quite a lot of English soldiers have been here — fine men and splendid horses (we have not a horse left in the district) — but now they have left this quarter and are in the north. They did well, too, and I am sorry for them where they are, for with the severe weather they are going to be very uncomfortable.

"We also had some of our own men from the south, and they were shivering with the cold, for now it is freezing hard. I forgot to tell you that Crouy, Cuffies, Vailly and all these villages you know so well are all razed to the ground — churches, houses, everything — nothing remains.

"As I write the bombardment commences afresh, and I must run. The room is shaking and the table dances. Who knows? It is perhaps our turn now, for as I told you, we await the shrapnel that is to finish us off."

Bereavement in Bombay — Bad English

1906

Lady Curzon made a point of collecting any amusing attempts made by Hindus to write English that came under her notice and had many curious specimens in her scrap book.

Once she got from Bombay a letter that two brothers sent out to their patrons on the death of their father, who had been the head of the firm. It ran:

"Gentlemen: We have the pleasure to inform you that our respected father departed this life on the 10th inst. His business will be conducted by his beloved sons, whose names are given below. The opium market is quiet and Mal. 1500 rupees per chest. O, death, where is thy sting? O, grave, where is thy victory? We remain, etc." — London Standard.

The Hummingbird — Bird or Bee?

1907

Two quaint observations about humming birds are published in "Early Long Island," by Martha Flint, both quoted from letters of the seventeenth century, written from the new country of America. Says one:

"The Humbird is one of the wonders of the country, being no bigger than a Hornet, yet having all the Demensions of a Bird as bill, wings with quills, spider-like legges, small claws. For Colour she is as glorious as the Raine bow."

Adrian Van der Donck, one of the Hollanders of Nieuw Nederlandt in 1642 writes of a —

"Curious small bird concerning which there are disputations whether it is a bird or a bee. It seeks its nourishment from flowers like the bee and is everywhere seen regaling itself on the flowers. In flying they make a humming noise like the bee. It is only seen in Nieuw Nederlandt in the season of flowers. They are very tender and cannot be kept alive, but we press them between paper and send them as presents to our friends."

Wife Rifles Her Husband's Pockets

Indiana, 1905

Discovers Compromising Letters and Files Suit for Divorce — The Courts

Mrs. Leonora D. Butler's testimony was heard this morning in her divorce case against William D. Butler and at the conclusion Judge Heaton took the matter under advisement.

She stated that she found in her husband's pockets two letters and two notes signed by a woman named Angel and while she could not remember just what was in them she knew enough to state that the terms of all the epistles were very endearing. She didn't know the woman until she had made an investigation.

Butler's love grew cold. He went to the fair at St. Louis last fall and upon his return told his wife that he did not have any regard for her and refused to perform the duties of a husband. He is employed by the Wabash Valley Traction company and she asks $1,500.

—The Fort Wayne Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Aug. 17, 1905, p. 2.

The Body Perfectly Obeys Your Rapid Brain

1922

YOUR POWERS

Lulu M. Cargill, clerk in the New York post office, takes from Nina E. Holmes of Detroit the title of "champion letter sorter of the world."

Miss Holmes attracted attention by sorting 20,610 letters in eight hours, or nearly 43 a minute. Miss Cargill sorts 30,215 letters in eight hours, which is better than one a second. And she sorted the first 23,500 letters without pause. Then she stopped for a cup of tea. Sorting a letter means picking it up, reading the address, recalling the postal route to reach the address, then tossing the letter into the proper bag.

Miss Cargill is 26 years old. She has been a postal clerk only three years.

Miss Cargill, you reflect, must have wonderful co-ordination of body and mind. A brain that works with lightning swiftness has automatically perfect teamwork with a body that perfectly obeys her rapid brain.

The body is a collection of machines, each trying to work cooperatively for the good of all. It is a more perfect system of government than man has been able to devise.

Miss Cargill, judging from her work, has what scientists would call "an extraordinary well-balanced system of endocrine glands."

In the so-called "efficient" person, the body glands speed up when needed and slow down when the energy of the body is required by the other glands.

In a boy who is growing too rapidly, as a result of abnormal activity by the pituitary gland in the brain, the other glands slow down and surrender part of their share of the body's energy. With most of his energy devoted to growing, the lad is apt to be otherwise languid.

Or, for example, you suddenly are in danger, which requires a quick use of reserve energy. The word is telegraphed through the blood. The message is sent out by the adrenal glands, which stand guard as a mobilizer of reserve energy. Other glands slow down, as if saying, "If the adrenals fail in this emergency, we all perish."

The heart responds to the adrenals and rushes blood to the arms or other parts of the body that have to meet the danger. This rush of blood is why "the face goes white" in a time of peril.

The crisis met and conquered, the blood rushes back to normal distribution through the body. The other glands "come to life." The sudden change makes the person, calm in or, half-collapse "after it's all over."

—The Bridgeport Telegram, Bridgeport, Connecticut, Sept. 26, 1922, p. 3.

Is Insanity On The Increase?

1881

Either insanity is on the increase, or the freaks of insanity are brought more prominently before the public than ever before. Scarcely a daily paper but what contains the doings of some crank, and insanity is used as a cloak for all kinds of crime. Last week a man presented himself at the White House and asked to see President Arthur, presenting a letter of introduction which read:

"John Woling: You are hereby notified that Dr. John Noetling is lawfully elected President of the United States, and occupies the White House every day."
"(Signed.)" "ALMIGHTY GOD"

The man was immediately arrested but made a desperate resistance, drawing a revolver, but was overpowered before getting an opportunity to use it. He gave his name as Dr. John Noetling.


Jesse James Gang

The James boys are now reported to be in Kentucky, where several attempts have been made to capture them, but failed. It is also reported, on what claims to be good authority, that Jesse James shot and killed another member of the gang a week or two ago, something about a woman. We hope that he will keep on thinning them out.


Ingenious Swindle

North Carolina will have to be credited with originating the most ingenious swindle of this age of swindlers. Several years ago a man pretending to be half-witted went around the country instituting suits against the responsible men of the community for amounts ranging from twenty-five to seventy-five dollars.

Some parties defended their cases and he did not pretend that they really owed him anything, but acted like a partially demented man would naturally act in such a case, but most of the parties paid no attention to it and judgment was rendered against them by default.

The man never tried to collect any of the judgment and so the thing rested for a year or two, until time enough had elapsed to prevent an appeal. Then the man turned up again not near as crazy as was, and the people of that country found that those judgments were collectable and would have to be paid. While there was no great amount against any one man, yet the aggregate sum amounted to thousands of dollars.

That country is just a little too hot to hold him so he is doing his collecting by an agent.

—The Appanoose Times, Centerville, Iowa, Nov. 10, 1881, p. 2.