Evening Star Newspaper, April 25, 1891, Page 13

OLD ADAM: , or, “I, YET NOT L” a be taketh from Bia sted amd divideth his LD ADAM HAD A ROOM TO LET. HE PC) cecalways called obd Adam, thengh he was still a comparatively young man. “Old” was only aterm of familiarity. Adam was handy and capable. He would do many things valuable workman and q ? . He occupied the top foor but one in the narrow, tall, rickerty house in the corner of Abel's Rents. The jeune we a creaky. ‘The top floor of all was only an attic floor. The floor below was ey and hung forward over the court beneath. ‘The house was the corner house of the court | ommon door was in the very angle of mathematicians as the folk in the court who occupied the lowest floor in the home was a cobbler; he mended shoes for audhe did not do much work be- : the court. He had two sons, one of he was bringing up to his trade the other was at sea. The son who at home was a tall, strapping fel- a great hero in the eyes of 7 . sll children who inhabited the These were the six children of pale-faced tailor who had @ consumptive ¢ days in the week things were not so he six children went to school, but was a whole holiday, and the noise on the staircase was terrible, for’ the poor woman bad to wash cpa bit on Saturday, and the ¥ on their noisiest play on case, using it asakind of castle, ng and defending it in mimic war. Ben, the cobbler's s as their hero, as I have t his fertile brain i ted some of their noisiest games and sug- gested some of their naughtiest tricks. 4 above «the tailor there lived ss old Indies. They came and times, but. as the neighbors they were in good work or bad, r they fared weil or ill, nobody knew, several suspected that the; ‘always as plentifully _suppli food ss they ought to be. They certainly and worn. And sometimes they mysterious bundles under their they came back without any some food wrapped in an un- old lady never went out. She be of Ben Cobbler christened her and Grannie Garret was Was whispered ob! ever so ol bright, comel ho always inspired the children with awe and affection who was active that le verse o habits, and which implics either capaciousness of mind or quietness of spirit. These were the inhabitants of No. 5, in Abel's R Old Adam had a room to let. What did an old bacheior ike Adam want with an empty room? The room did not long stand empty. It was soon rumored in the court that it was much curiosity was felt about the new Some said he was Adam's brother. ot the ease. Old Adam said no word ab lodger, and no one asked him. For though he was old Adam, a handy and bborly man, yet he was not a man to take liberties with, so the gossips had it all their own “Old Adam must have been satisfied about his lodger, that was quite certain. He would not let a’ man in unless his references were good. There was no doubt about that. Adam knew what he was about.” ossips were right; Adam was t Bis ledger. He had paid hima week's rent in advance, and what more was Be the’ man was regular in bis iseemed to have regular work, as jar as old Adam himself. ows in No. 5, as I have said, were at right angles to one auother. So it happened that when old Adam flung open his window, g to lean out and smoke his pipe, th opening his window at the sam me in full view of old Adam and almost within reach of a hand shake. The new lodger was lighting his pipe. said old Adam. lodger. ond of smoking?” said Adam. “I like my pipe in the morning andat dinner ning’s the time for me,” said me,” said old Adam. ‘The new lodger began to unfold « crumpled 2 aper ‘a paper?” said Adam. Uk Adam did not F said: “So do I!” favorite | se ?” seid Adam. iking,” waid the lodger. said Adam, opening bis smoked in silence till Adam he ashes out of his pipe and folded ewspaper, when the ledger blew his 1 and rolled up his paper also. ‘Good night,” said ‘Adam, as he closed his Om, ." said the lodger, closi man, that!” said old Uke mine! I think he'll do.” lked about his tom, putting his ning. When he had done yet; I believe I'll take a ing his. Adam. wn the stairs he heard his r close and the sound of his foot- ng the stone stairway. - ed after a twenty minutes’ he overtook his lodger on the lauding their door "said Adam. troll before turning in.” said Adam. “Good night,” said .d time that evening. ,' said the lodger, disappearing that,” said Adam, as he ck match in his room. “Likes what I I think he'll do.” A light gleamed up in his lodger’s window as be spoke Aft b a beginning of acquaintance it was rprising to hear the lodgers below de- lodger were “that Ido not know that the word was quite the right ut it was certainly not wonderful Saat the lodgers used it, for old Adam and his lodger moved like clockwork together. Old Adam had always been # regular man; his bab- ite we retty fixed,” the neighbors said. But one man's habits may escape notice, but when two men who live opposite each other are both regular in their bite—so regu- lar that they go in and out almost at the same hours, take their walksand their pipes with the same precision as to time and quantity, where the footsteps un the staircase which mark their eno longer two, ity forces i ass bit of reader. christened the new lodger “Mr. Boswell,” old Adan being regar ssa Dr. Johnson; his name soon got shorte: de ” and the boys and girls first @ another “old Boz” as the lodger passed them on the stairs, but later they began to gather courage, and to speak with something more than bated breath. “Old Boz” was buzzed loudly from lip to lig, till one day ¢ likes to be called not unreasonable to resent being Boz,” especially when one’s name fa Higginson, The lodger met old Adam on the landin, tbat night. Old Adam had beard the children’s Voices and the name old Bos shouted after bis | “They are toads,” said his . “Yes, beastly little toads, old Adam. Now they wore in their rooms. Half an hour afterward they opened their windows for their evening pipe. “Oue might as well beta be Uy the lodgers Fogler pandemonium.” said old o8 Adam. (NB —H pandemon. | ast complain to thetr father,” ssid the “Serve them right if I did.” said Adam. seh ne gusht to keep his beats in order,” e only playground. ‘And the | themselves to themselves.” | fabulous age—“old, | “He's no right to let them bes nuisance to Mat gst out of said the lodger. t's get out 6 row,” 7 | right,” said Adam. “A stroll will do us good. But when they got outside there was a chill- ing drizzle of aunoying rain; the night, too, was raw. Horrid weather,” said Adam. Killing—quite killing,” said the i houldn’t think it was very good to be out,” ssid Adam. “One ought to have a bit of peace in the evening, after work: bat what with Fain, outside and noise inside one’s luck is not muc No!” said the lodger, “it's rough work, but I know a snug corner. “Where?” eld Adam. ll show you,” said the lodger. An hour or two later Adam and his | were coming home. They walked arm-in- arm and were more affectionate than usual. They gushed in their confidences and ex- changed grumbles about the their life — work was detestable, weather abominable, children were worthless and noisy brats. They were not in the mood to | bear things equably; and, alas! the stair- | case, when they ‘their house, was | swarming with the clfldren. High games were going forward. Bob had started some novel play, in which sudden plunges and leaps | formed a chiet part. As the two men entered, the | Jast remnantesof their equanimity and self-con- | trol were driven away. They were, probably not 80 sure upon their feet as usual; but more ture walkers might have been upset by the sud- | den rush downward of an eager band of ex- | cited children, heedless of all save the desire |to reach the bottom first. Qn they came, and, tiny little thinga as some of them wer | they fairly swept the two men off their feet and sent them stumbling, rolling and Lamping Gown the last step or two. It was not much of # fall; had it been worse, however, it might Lave been better. It was not bad enough to ber or to stun; it was just bad enough to janger. Furious, lost, to all thought of the | children, they rose and flung them in a huddled le together. They rushed onward up the | Stairs. In another minute they were launching cut their wrath on the poor pale-faced tailor | and his paler wife. All the cheap wisdom which selfish people, tatried with anxiety, know 40 well how to em- | ploy was in this case min; passionate re- Proaches and exaggerated scovune of the tran- saction down stairs. It was shameful to have children so uncared for, growing up a nuisance and s danger. | They were not going to stand it. The landiord | must choose whether he would have decent quiet tenants or a parcel of noisy, imm young rascals, whose parents could not or would not keep them in order. More was said, and when these wild and wrathfal men had said their say they bounced out of the door, not waiting fora reply. Up the stairs they came, the lodger whispering hoarsely his indignant comments—‘worthless, room in decent houses—unwholesome lot alto- gether.” Old Adam grunted his assent, and was not above letting strong words fall from his lips. ‘The quick-spoken oaths were on his lips when be reached ized him, and then swiftly and silently on, going ‘down the stairs. Presently all was silent; the children a gathered in, the last lodgers had tramped to their rooms, tl passed from the sky. the stars came out and a gentle uiet beam in at the window thinking, and why did the moonbeams puzzle and trouble him? Does a man like to sey that he was wrong? If old Adam had not disliked saying it, I think it wai what he might have said. At any rate, the tole about the still and silent seem different. His room was looking shabbier than he thought it was. He had al been proud of his Little room. He had knocked together httle book shelves, filled the aibelves with = few well-chosen books, usi spare money with judgment at the old book sualls. "Some taste might Lave been noticed in the cheap Little ornaments on the mantel othing was tawdry or gaudy, and though nothing was of exquisite workmanship, yet there was a point in everything. The tiny bust was a cheap thing en but then it was a bit of hero- worship. jagh Rlaster as it was it was Socrates’ face, and above it wasa simple white aque, out of which rose a head crowned with thorns. The moonbeam was kissing it now. “Lam a beast,” said old Adam. With that he fot Up aud walked about his little room. “What come to mi asked. “What has come to my room? Why, it’s not like the same. place! And I'm not like the same man. That's what she meant when she looked so; I'm sure it was.” Then he bethought himself of the lodger. What had he to do with it? Old Adam felt that he had some hand in it. Yet he was not going to be shabby and put the blame on another. Yet he could not deny that his books, which had been his joy, had grown dusty since that lodger | came. ‘He could not deny that he had frown short of temper, less patient, less cheery since the lodger came. And, certainly, tonight | he had spenta couple of hours where he had never been before, and it was the lodger that had tempted him to go. am an ass,” said old Adam; and then, as caught sight of the thorn-crowned nead again, he sai will. I'll go down stairs. Poor little brats! they meant no harm. Id better have them brought up here for a game. That would hay @ what he'd have dene. Iwill. I'll go down.” And down stairs old Adam went, but the lodger was sharp; he heard Adam’s door open and Adam's footstep on the stair. and he came joked over the iron banisters. “You're ,”" he whispered. * said old Ac am.” ray ey for he could not forget a pair of bright eyes which had looked athim with painfui wonder. Sohe went on downward, thinking of thecrown of thorns and fecling a deep pity for the children. But when he reached the poor tailor’s door go in. He listened, and all ct. Was it? No! There was a sound within, « footstep behind the door, a murmu: of voices, then the opening door. Old Adam fell back into shadow. The light mm the opened door showed him Grannie rret's daughter. ‘The little tailor was ler ting her out. hey are troublesome, I know,” the little tailor was saying “but what can I'do? I hardly get enough, work as I will. Andas for my voor wife——,” and here the thin, weary voice proke a little and see idy. Don’t you let your wife | try and keep them quiet. Poor rns! it’s dull enough for them. But bea help to you yet yht,” sald the little tailor, holdin the guttering, wind-waved candle high an | looking at her face. “You're a good woman,” | he said. Nonsense,” said Grannie Garret’s daughter, ion't think'anything of that, I don’t think anything of the little trouble tonight. Old | Adam sa good sort. It's that lodger that has set him wrong. If he has only courage to | follow what he knows he might be, he'll shake | off old Boz. And, any way, it'll be all right. | Don’t you be uneasy about the landlord and that. Good night was said again, the door was closed, and old Adam saw her pass up the stairs.’ Then he followed quietly. | He thought she had gone further, but when | be reached the next landing he saw her stand- |ing and lifting her hand to knock at the door self | whiere these two mysterious sisters lived. “He | t the top the stairs when the moon | tashed out a beam which fell on his face, and Grannie Garret's daughter saw him. “Don't knock,” he said; “tell me how they are._I saw ou come out, I wanted to know. “W Tam! t a good woman you are | "““Nousense!" said she. “The children | all fast asleep. Poor little souls! | sadly after their | nor “Out again!” eried time? What in the world for?” « said. “Uniess—" “No!” she said. “It may not need going out, Iwas going to say, unless you have a loaf of | bread you can lend me.” | hat = =. ete ewe (“SSNo? she auld” “its you: cannot it.” *eiMfiund, here?” anid old Adam. | _ “Yes, here, sir, if you “They have ‘had no food ‘sometimes get them sweetheart,” be |. Grannio Garret's for a moment, and her But the door sh work of | y muserable creatures—not fit to be allowed | Bo: THE EVENING STAR: WASHINGTON es,” he said, Her foot was on the stair. She looked back a him. The moonbeams were dancing about the little landing. You must be very happy!” he said, putting up his great foot on the staircase her. | “What is the secret of it?” “‘Ask your sweetheart,” she replied. “But if you love her you ought to know.” Old Adam looked at her as if he meant her to go on. lodger | ‘To love is tobe happy!” she said. “Ack Zour sweetheart, if you don't know it your- “Then,” said old Adam, “I must still ask ou.’ “No! no!” said she. “Ask your eweetheart for whom you want the lace collar.”” “I meant it for you,” said old Adam. When h serious she turned and faced him in the moonlight. “I was a beast last night, but don’t think that I want to be. You are nearer to heaven than am. My heart | beats with you and your ways when you ure | near. Wear the lace’ collar for me and I will wear your yokeull my life. My heart has wor- shiped you even when I acted like » beast.” ‘Then she put out her hand—in the moonlight they joined their hands. lieve in you,” she said. “I trust you.” “{ do not even know your name,” hesaid, as he drew her near him. “My name is Grace,” she said. After atew moments she glanced at him from beneath his strong arm, and seid, “But what about old Boz? pAnd old Adam said, “I've done with old ‘The lodge: shaggy head thrust ont, and the lodger's.vo saic ‘You're a fool!” But when old Adam went to bed that night he did not think he had been a fool. ‘The next morning old Adam found the key of his lodger's door lying outside his own. The lodger had disappeared. There was great joy amohg the children when it was known that old gon 18 Menced in Abel's Rents. A little sea air did a world of good to the tailor's wife ular work rfiude the faces of th@ mysterious sisters almost plump; Grannie Garrett's daugh- ter went out with her lace collar on one morn- ing and came back with a gold ring besides. No new lodger was allowed in old Ada t room. Tt was always useful, for children often played there. One day she asked him a question: “Adam, for old Adam I cannot call you—I reverence and love you too well for that—Adam, ara I as good as your old lodger?” “Yes, Grace, call me Adam; for the old Adam is gone, I think. You are my better seif, old z was my worse. You were right when’ you said, ‘To love is to be happy !"” They joined their han: and ‘their eyes moved spontaneously to the plaque over the mantelpiece and rested with new meaning upon that crown of thorns. door was quickly opened and a loving pressure ———_+e+___ DECORATING THE HOME. Some of the Latest Decrees of Fashion in Furnishing and Adorning the House. From the Upho'sterer. The subject of frieze decoration for a room is no longer slurred by running a strip of gaudy border around. It has attained char- acter. We saw recently a very good frieze in this form: The entire walls were covered with a soft bluish tint, with detached buttercup fig- ures in natural size and natural yellow. A two-foot deep, plain, soft blue paper was run around as a frieze and separated from the wall treatment by a two-inch railing or shelf, gold. upon which different sized plates or plaques of the buttercup color rested, tip tilted against the wall and showing here and there around the room at a distance of about a foot or a foot and a half apart. These yellow bite standing out from the blue background formed the frieze design. A SMOKERS DEN. ‘The same idea can be done for any other room. Take # parlor, for instance, and treat the walls in one shade, bringing out bits of pot- tery all of one coloring, sharply outlined against @ frieze background. The idea was lapted with excellent effect bya chronic smoker in the following way: His walls he made of an old brick red, washed out very weak till the mere ition only of the red was there—a red. arranged a shelf below his frieze line and crossed and reerossed about one hundred and fifty long- stemmed brown clay pipes with plenty of sharp red tobacco jars resting also on the shelf. The pipes and jars formed the design. They were not permanently affixed to the shelf and wall, but could be removed when needed. These articles stood out in sharp contrast and made an odd decoration. WHY FASHIONS RAGE AND DIE. The reason that fashions “rage” for awhile and then die out is not so much because they are lacking in artistic value, but simply because they have been found inadaptable to all con. tions. The white-and-gold room, which dream and delight to the woman of glowing ra- diance and bisque daintiness of feature,.be- comes positively painful in ite contrast to the dull and color! Therefore that occupant soon tires of her “white-and-gold” room, aud encourages some other style. A pre . at arm's length, will pleaso any woman, but put that hat on her head and let her s9¢ that it makes her nose look stubbed or her chin look sbarp, or her face too pudgy, or her jow too long, and the thing that was beau- tiful asa definitely apart detail, becomes now perfectly repellent. The milliner who best succeeds is she who improves one’s looks. It is not the hat that is being worn. understand, but the face. It is not the room which should be on exhibition, but the occupant. THE MASK IN DRAPERY DECORATIONS. The mask is playing a prominent part now- adays in drapery decoration. There are Jap: nese masks sold made of carved wood, ine: pensive, nicely enameled, with the features painted grotesquely. ‘They are hung up on the corner of an and “the easel scarf or length of drapery silk is caught up from the — The ordinary 10-cent chil mask of ourth of July reminiscence we have also seen utilized in quaint work to admirable effect. ‘THE EXTREME IX BED DRAPERY. Bed drapery is running today into extreme styles. Two hundred years ago beds -and chiffonieres were profusely hung with fabrics and today the fashion is returning with start- ling force, and bed valances, testers, canopies and paneled sides are now much in vogue. They are made to “match” the window cur- tains and importers have for some time past supplied a demand for sets of shams, spreads, chidionlere covers and window draperies. CORNER DECORATIONS are becoming quite as much the féature of a room nowadays as the folding doors or win- dows, which fora long time were about the only things one thought it worth while to drape. We recently saw a corner arranged which provided for a wide divan, hid by a curtain, suspended from grille work traversing ‘the corner like the long line of atriangie. The same curtain treatment can half hide a cabinet ‘or a grouping of bric-a-brac, with » faint lam glow shimmering through the folds of it, and, moreover, this arrangement need take no more room than an ordinary corner table would oc- cupy. A FEW DON'TS AROUND TRE HOUSE. “Don't dust your furniture with a feather duster; it’s like cleaning an egg cup by stirring the egg argund. Use @ cloth. If it is lightly ed | oiled so much the better for the woodwork. iH Hf Hl fe Eri Hi ia i ; i face of another occupant. | LATEST NEWS FROM NEW YORK. SERVICE UNDER OPENLY AMERICAN AUSPICES—A SEND-OFF FOR THEODORE THOMAS—BEGINXING OF THE GRANT MONUMENT—ITEMS OF CITT LIFE. ‘Special Correspondence of The Evening Star. New Yorx. April 23, 1891. REPORT HAS BEEN WIDELY CIROU- lated through the press that the Inman Steamship Company, which now is virtually the Pennsylvania railroad, has decided to build two new steamships in American yards that shall equal in size and speed the fleetest grey- hounds of the sea, The cost of the ships was given at €2.000,000 each, which is about what the City of Paris and City of New York cost to build abroad. I was talking a day or two ago with the engineer in charge of one of the great machinery concerns of the country, who would have much to do with these new ships if con- structed under the auspices named, and I learned from him that the reports are prema- ture to say the least. It ix true that the Pennsylvania railroad desires to enlarge the Inman fleet and prefers to have the new ships of, native comtruction; | but the | first step in the program an Amer- eae registry for the other sitips of the Tine You remember, perhaps, that Senator Cameron endeavored to put 4 billof this sort through Congress last winter, but failed to accompli it. After bringing the Inman steamers under the sters and stripes the idea would then be to increase the fleet by two more American built —— of the very finest character. ‘The plans are helped forward considerably by the subsidy bill passed by the last Congress, but the Pennaylvania corporation do not feel that enough protection been given even yet to justify them in going ahead at once with ship building on a large scale. And thus the matter hangs, like Mohammed's coffin, between heaven and earth. ‘The tendency of events, is toward the development of a great steamship service under openly American GOULD DON'T FIGHT THAT WAY. The brokers and railroad men have had a good deal of quiet fun this week out of tl bogus Gould interview. It was a fraud on its | face, the only other possible interpretation being that Gould for once in his life had taken too much drink, or had been irritated beyond endurance by’ something peculiarly aggra- vating. Gould's habit toward all ne 4 reporters is perfectly well known in this city. He has the reputation of being the hardest man in New York to interview, and it is safe to say that no reporter ever gets anything out of him which has any value as news, excepting when Gould for businews purposes wishes to use the press. In Mr. Gould’s explanation of the incident he says, after denouncing the report as entirely groundless: “I vent fora reporter at Denver and asked for a trustworthy and accu- rate man.” Now this speech is more like the railroad king and is undoubtedly authentic. It expresses exactly his attitude. When he wants to appear in the newspapers he “sends for a reporter” and wants ‘a trustworthy and accurate man,” who will publish his views just as he wishes to have them spread abroad. Gould would be the last man to shake his fist and scream forth an angry defiance of his rivals in the trade. He much prefers the quicter and more effective way of asking his rival politely if it is “well with thee, my brother,” and in the meantime injecting a krics under his friend’s rib and slowly turning it around. Nowadays Mr. Gould does not even hire a bully, as he used to when he put forward Jim Fisk to bull- doze and browbeat. He has found it better t> rely altogether on his own subtlety. People who know his habits say that this arch schemer ill sometimes sit by ‘the hour in his private office, gazing vacantly at nothing and tearing up strips of paper into little bits and scatter- ing them on the floor. But in good time the road world finds that this modest invalid was not idling away his hours in day dreams or on transcendental speculations. GRANT'S TOMB TO BE BUILT. Ali things come to him who waits, and on that principle Ger. Grant is finally to eee his monument begun. The ceremony of breaking ‘ound is to take place next Monday, and is to iScquies quel caue. Sin eeteen come mittee feel that they have enough money on hand and in sight t warrant them in goin jahead. The accepted design calls for a mucl larger expenditure than they can now com- mand, but they expect to increase their bank account considerably as soon as the public are given the ocular proof that the project is in the way to be realized. The ceremonies izclude s parade of regulars, a naval salute and the usual oratorical exercises, Gen. Horace Porter being the orator of the ‘day. The committee were | quite alarmed by the agitation in Congress last Winter looking to a change of site, and have now put their best foot forward with the idea of anticipating any further trouble of that sort in the future. "It remains to be seen whether they will beat the record of the Washington monument for slowness in completing the work that they undertake. THOMAS GETS A SEND-OFF. Last night Theodore Thomas was given a royal send-off at Delmonico’s, a distinguished company being present to do him honor. Mr. Curtis presided with his usual grace. The mu- sical development of New York and of the United | States for the past twenty-five years was duly | comniemorated and Mr. Thomas, as the hero | of the evening, came in for large doses of well- deserved taffy. He leaves for the west with the | hearty good’ wishes of New York, though his musical supremacy is no longer unchallenged. His farewell performances at the Lenox Ly- ceum brought out a good deal of the old thusiasm and hero worship. I see, by the way, that he is now to begin another farewell series at the Madison Square Garden. Byron evi dently had the theatrical profession in his mind when he wrote, “Farewell, a word that hath been and shall be.” Whether this is positivel the Inst and final farewell or not it would be ras! to say. While speaking of farewells it might be worth while to mention one which for simplicity was quite an interesting and effective novelty. When Otero finished her engagement Saturday night at the Eden Musee the sprightly dancer, suimmoning all her English, advanced to the footlights and, throwing a kiss to the audience, exclaimed, ““Ladie-gem: I now leave; goo-bye.” ITEMS OF CITY LIFE. One of the most curious episodes in tariff legislation occurred recently and bf greatly amused merchants. A glove manufacturer up | in Gloversville, N. Y., imported 800 pairs of welts for use in the manufacture of gloves, on which he expected to pay, under his interpre tation of the tariff, £280." What was the poo man’s astonishment and horror to find, how- ever, that at the appraiser's office the duty was increased from $286 to $11,000! Naturally the | importer lid some lively ee a finally succeeded a day or two ago in gett v= Foment affcers to revise thelr view and’ ac- cept his. ‘e all know that New York is ‘quite Eng- lish.” Our Intest imitations of London are, however, very praiseworthy. ‘The very latest has been the foundation of ‘a flower market in Union Square that is intended to be areplica of Covent Garden. The project has siarted off with a rush and is likely to succeed, not so much because it is English as because of the extraor- dinary love for flowers which the modern New Yorker exhibita. On a broader seale the bill to establish an American Kew Gardens in one of ture and may be accepted us_a fixture. Some of the wealthiest and most public spirited btedly before long we shall have # tural display that shail rival any to be found ry likel; ‘there will be ological garden, as tho da 4 5 i | sotto voce that sq far as private the new parks has gone smoothly throngh the | %™@por" le in town are behind the enterprise, and don horti- | 2 e D.C, SATURDAY. APRIL, 25, 41891—SIXTEEN PAGES. 4 QUEEN'S LIFE HISTORY. One Years. Tn the youth of Queen Victoria there were no amateur photographers: if there had been it is pleasing to imazine the Duke of Kent, hor illustrious father, prancing sbout the future queen's pillow with a kodak and a strip of magnesium wire, aiming to get an impression upon the film of one of her most angelic baby smiles. The lack of the camora illustrates the often-quoted remark that the poorest now enjoy advantages denied to the richest lords and ladies of the bad old times. Now it is the dry plate and the electric light that illustrate the saying; only a little while ago, compare tively, it was the knife and fork, carpets, chim- neye—nine-tenths, in short, of the things we Bow consider neocesaries. = But, though the features of Victoria could not be photographed daily or weekly after the modern fashion, we are not left quite in ig- norance of how she looked in babyhood. Sir mas Lawrence, president of the Royal Academy, stole with soft foot upon the child she lay one day asleep and made the draw- ing of her plump, ringlet-tramed baby face by band, of which the above is a wrowed, like the others in this article, from the Strand Magazine. And Victoria Mary Louisa, her duchess mother, must have been hard to please if she did not smile upon the veteran portrait painter and tell him it was so like the dear child. And Sir Thomas at fifty was certainly old enough to be wise, so he probably said he had never seen 80 lovely a baby. ars Tidnguhad qresdy ketet known hand traced the miniature from which the above was drawn. The Duke of Kent had died. King William IV, who was himself only the Duke of Clarence until the death of his older brother, had just ascended the throne, Dut his two little princess daughters were dead and his five extremely healthy children by Mrs. Jordan, the actress, couldn't be princes or princesses. though they were first upon the stage. this miniature, painted when Vic- eight years old. cannot have been -y far from the time when the hand of fate, sweeping from the path all who stood before her, opened a way to the throne to the orphan daughter of George III's fourth son. fe a 2 SS? It couldn't have been long after this time that the queen to be, having been apprised of the honors certainly in store for her if she lived, made that memorable remark, “I will be good.” Some millions of her younger subjects ba since regretted that she ever uttered such an unexceptionable eentiment. For probably no hhrase is more often quoted to, the youth of ngland. George Wushington’s apocryphal remark that he could not tell a lie isn't ’a cir cumstance to it for all-round usefulness. In justice to Queen Vietoria it must be said that she kept her wordin the main, studied hard, obeyed her mother and acted the part of a dutiful child in general. So when her turn ¢ame to mount the throne everybody agreed acter went the new queen was vast improvement upon her royal uncles; more or less remote. Victoria was proclaimed quecn on June 21, 1837. It was just after this event and before her solemn coronation a year later that R. Lane, A. R. A., made this drawing of his young ign’s pretty person. Mr. Lane was not such an illustrious artist ts some of his cor: | h ries, but who could have helped is * | the plumes Ab, well Pedy ey for deftly touching out with his little i wrinkle or two from the negative for ber who was once Baby Victoria asicep on her pillow and who is still a woman and his queen? GARDENS MADE OUT OF SWAMP. A Canal Fifty Miles Long That isto Redeem Nine Hundred Square Miles in Florida. spt Ware 18 SOON TO BE DUG ACROSS southern Florida for drainage purposes that will rival in the mightiest works of antiquity in the same line. It will be fifty miles in length, connecting Lake Okee- chobee with the Atlantic ocean, and the 600,000 acres redeemed by it from what is now swamp will produce more sugar than is now Srown on the whole island of Cuba. The cost of the canal will be $2,000,000. It will be 800 feet wide and 12 feet deep, in order that it may be able to «a-ry off all the superfluous water even during the floods of the rainy season.” Thus spoke Dr. Wiley, who has just returned from an expedition to Florida, whither he was sent by the Department of Agriculture, to a Star reporter. “The changes that are being made by artifi- cial means in the region I visited are simply marvelous,” he added. “A vast extent of hitherto useless territory covering thousands of square miles of almost impassable swamp is be- ing rapidly transformed into a fruitful garden, and by the simplest process of draining. Much of this territory covers the highest land of the peninsula, seventy feet above the level of the Sea, while all of it is elevated considerably above tide water, so that it only needs « few ditches to carry off the floods and change it to dry land. Furtherm this land e rich- est and most productive in the world, a vegeta ble mold of great depth representing the de- Posits of centuries of dlecayed semi-tropical Srowths. ‘The whole country along the cbain of lakes from Kissimmee south to Okeechobee and the Everglades has a soil of soft muck that will yield from two to three tons per acre of sugar—sugar, mind you, and not sugar cane. HOW THE WORK WAS CARRIED ON. “The Ppiladelphia syndicate in charge of this enterprise made its bargain originally with the state of Florida on a basis of equal shares, ry other section of land redeemed to become its own property, but the syndicate has bought out the state's half interest, paying $1,000,000 for the 4,000,000 acres representing Fiori share in’ the swam, y drained. Work was begun in the neighborhood of Kissim- mee by ing a ditch between it Lake Toho} 8 a5x¢ connected in liks Cypress, further south; Lake Cypress was joined by a canal to Lake Kissimmee, still more to the south, and finally another ditch was drained into Lake Okeechobee, and the lakes themselves were lowered from six to eight fect, 30,000 acres of swamp being incidentally changed into farming land unsurpassed by any in the world. Some of it has been sold lately for as much as $300.an acre. Spring vegetables raised upon it are being shipped north at pres- ent in large quantities. ““As fast as the syndicate gets money by the sale of lands redeemed it invests the cash in the digging of more canals. Just now it is tackling the smaller lakes south and east of Kissimmee and draining the swamps about them. But only a beginning has been made thus far. Upon the vast and only partly ex- plored swamps around Lake Okeechobee the eye of Philadelphia enterprise is greedily bent. That enormous pond, 100 miles wide, which re- ceives the whole drainage of central Florida, is bordered with eudless morasses. The latter extend to the southward sixty or seventy miles, and this part is called the Everglades. A system of ditches is shortly to be dug on the west side of Lake Okeechobee to carry off the super- tluous water into the neighboring Lake Hicpo- chee, which empties by the Caloosahatenec river into the.Gulf of Mexico. At the same time a dike forty miles inlength will be thrown up along the west shore of Lake Okeochobee to restrain the overflow of the rainy reason. In this manner about 110,000 acres will be re- claimed to cultivation. “But the great scheme of the not distant future is that of making the Giant canal from Okeechobee into the At- jantic ocean, by which {00 square miles of the most admirable farming land imaginable will be rescued from the water. SUGAR WILL BE THE MAIX CROP. “For rice and all sorts of garden vegetables this region of the future will be most proluct- ively adapted, but sugar will doubtless be its main crop. Cane can be raised there to sucb advantage that, with the aid of improved me- chanicel processes, the government bounty alone will pay the cost of growing it. The cui- tivation will be altogether by steam. Ditches will checker-board the land, which will be broken for planting with the steam plow, drawn back and forth across the fertile acres by cn gines on board boats puffing slowly along the canals on both sides of the fields. ‘The expense of thie method is about one-fourth that of mule power, which in the redeemed country is not altogether convenient to use, the animuls hav- ing to wear steel plates eighteen inches wide on their feet to keep them from sinking in. It is comparatively eusy to dig canals there, because the ‘soil is like so mueb soft muck, and it is only necessary to start ina steam dredge at one end of a proposed ditch and go straight ahead. “Such is the future sugar region of the United States, the product of which is destined to drive the imported article out of the home markets. Its latitude is below the frost line, so that all along the Caloosahatchce, which runsaway to the west, you cau see the caue crowned with the tassel. “You may travel all through the sugur fields of Louisiana and you will never see a tassel, because the frost comes and kills the plant before it has had time to be- come mature. For rice the lands to be re- claimed about Lake Okeechobee are partien- larly suitable, owing to the convenience of overflowing them.” Pipe Alleged Attempt to Bribe Exposed. A profound sensation was created in the dem- ocratic senatorial caucus at Tallahassee Thnre- day night by the production of » written offer, signed by Representative Newlan, of $100 to Jobn L. Bryant to influence desertions from Senator Call. Mr. Newlan denied all knowledge of the paper and i{iaimed the existence of conspiracy against him. An invest com- ge was appointed. se fink a Enumerators of Indians Recalled. Two census euumerators, who begun taking the census of Indians onthe Colville reserva- tion by authority of alaw passed at the last session of the state legislature, have returned, Raving been ordered off ths venameane by be —_—S —_ > had not been ora mally authorized by the federal goverumen: permit a census to Be taken. ————+e2 Lora Churchill Leaves for Africa. Lord Randolph Churchill left London for South Africa yesterday. Lady Churchill and a crowd of the members of the rp to- getner with a number of Lord Randolph’s rel- ations, gathered at the railrond station to bid i He was loudly cheered by those departure. sound, whi! for two blocks “Ah! beginning to rain; lucky I brought m: umbrella with me! old boy; vou're home, safe and i have to borrow your umbrella more!” pitelt iale I met you; raining it?— i 18 Qoesrc Axv Laxe St. Jonx Ramwar. Only rai! route to the delightful summer reeorte orth: of Quebec, throurh the CANADIAN ADIRONDACKS. Magnificent scenery. Beautiful climate, Monarch Parlor and Sleeping Care. Hotel Roberval, Lake St. Jobn, recently enlarged, has first-class accommodations for 300 quests, and ® Tun in connection with the ‘Island House” at the Grand Discharee, the center of the **Ouananiche™ fishing grounds. Daily communication by steamer cross the lake. The fishing rights of Lake St. John and tributaries an ares of 20,000 square miles, are free to guests of the hotels. For information as to hotels apply to: manager Hotel Roberval, Roberval, Lake St.John. For folders an@ suide books apply to G. LEVE, 45 Brosdway, New York. arta in ATTIRE & OnTIO Rat ROAD, ‘Scheduce i in effect April 18, I8O1. ‘Leave Washington from station corner of New Jamey avenue and C sm. Dine “Gar), e120 maoe 0, Dining” Cari, and 8°30, “10390 peau} ict PariorCarson all an: 10:50 p.m open at Te on, Sticen, Ja ait “Ge ‘Grn. Fam. ((H®S4PEAKE AND O#TO RAILWAY, Schetute t Leave Union D : SE wae aE Bitbout change toCimctuneth arriving y 20 pts. Ftv. Vestuuie Liuitnds daily Gar Pittsburg to Eases, 10°00 pom day, feb with throuch Sleeper Dune'to Chiearo. 7" BALIN For RALTIMOLE AND POTOMAC Hed Express ot Putian For New York ‘. 400m daly” anes hee waa £OK PHTLADELPHTA ONLY. Fast Express §:10.n. week dupe ano Lapress, punda; oa . 13 snday only, B90 pean WASHINGTON SOUTHERE id REFECT Hi SAwar. bac Saha. 3