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The Andrew County Republican. [volume] (Savannah, Mo.) 1871-1876, September 03, 1875, Image 3

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SAVANNAH,
MISSOURI.
Daddy Flick's Spree.
KY I'IM.KG AKKWKIGIIT.
Daddy Flick was a queer old Dick,
Trudging along with a crooked stick,
Frowsy and dirty and tattered and torn.
Wearing a hat. that a goat would scorn
To nibble at, it was so forlorn :
And I state, with a solemn regard for truth,
That a garment must be in a state of ruth,
A very unsavory speeios of gams,
If an up-town goat will reject the same.
Jle was gray a a badger and old as a crow,
And his escs wi re queer well, beery, you
know,
Illeached ai.d weak and he had, I suppose,
The most absurd and peculiar nose
That ever invited a passer-by
To think of the worth of ebrietv.
Naught can I sny in his praise J wot.
Ie-pect ible'r Honest:- Oh, certainly not!
31 o.st people ca'led him a wretched old sot.
Only a beggar, lie used to stand
Day by d.iy. with his hat in his hand.
Asking for pence from the grave and the gay,
And getting them, too, I am glad to say,
Not in abundance, but just enough
For a little bread, and more of the stull
That went to nourish his curious nose
And keep it blooming, a full.blown rose.
"Life," he said, "for the rich or poor,
3Ieans but the sauu endure, endure!
Troubles to poor and rich befall,
But the bottle." he said, "is a friend to all.'
Now that you know the old reprobate,
lleggar, dishonest, inebriate.
All that he asks, sir, of you or me
Ts a little measure of charity.
For twenty years he had been the same,
Till at last the usual period came
"When age began to assert itself
And threatened to lay him upon the shelf,
And parties said in that part of the town
That the poor old sinner was breaking down,
"When all at once he was seen to be
Displaying a greater activity
Begging with more than his usual vim,
And, what was entirely new for him,
Ticking up jobs and inquiring, two,
For any work he could find to do.
People said it was strange, if true.
When they heard a rumor to that effect
A change impossible to expect,
ft seemed, you perceive, anomalous
That Flick should be turning industrious.
Hut so it was; if you'll listen well.
The bottom facts of the case I'll tell.
All of u in tills vale of tears
3ush along through the busy years
Chasing phantoms, and. when they're caught,
Finding out we have captured naught,
have caught shadows confound the same!
Happy the mortal who has no aim.
Flick, for seventy years to date,
Had never thought to be bothering fate;
Had been contented to barely live,
Caring for nothing the world can give
A sort of philosopher, as I think.
In seeking for naught but his meat and drink ;
P.ut, mind you, never a notion had he
Of any claim to philosophy.
The grca'est and wisest have one solt streak,
And so at the last Flick showed up weak.
He said to himself on a certain day,
"Daddy Flick, you are old and grav,
Likely to drop off any day.
l.efore your coffin is lowered down,
Or, what is woie, you go on the town,
You ought to have, as it seems to me.
One good, old-fashioned, expensive spree."
Ala-;. I fear that my readers all
Are disappointed at such a fall.
I wish he had felt a higher call.
Something of nobler and healthier tone,
An aspiration with more backbone.
l!ut I told you before that the poor old rat
Had never a virtue beneath his hat.
I must tell my stories as they befall;
If you don't like "em don't read 'em, that's all.
After a couple of months had passed
Daddy Flieh had at length amassed
A sum sufficient, he thought, to see
His way to that same old-fashioned spree.
And so one night as he paddled home
llesaid to himself that the time had come.
And, cackling over an ancient song,
He jingled his cash as he went along.
What were his his assets? A marvelous
sum ;
Enough to purchase unlimited rum
(Listen, you who collect your rents!)
About a dollar and fifty cents.
Passing along by a vacant lot
(The namftof the street I have clean forgot),
A very diminutive boy he spied,
Slouching a very tall fence beiide:
A lonesome figure so woe-begone,
So desolate-looking and haggard and wan.
That even Flick, iu his callous heart,
Telt a movement of pity start.
Ragged he was and exceedingly small,
With garments that covered him, that was all ;
A cap remarkable after its kind,
With front dismantled and baggy behind;
Shoes too big by about a mils,
But gaping wide with a frightful smile,
As though they laughed at the tiny feet
That dragged such a burden along the street.
He stood there li-tless and weary and worn,
Hands in his pockets, alone and "forlorn ;
His features stained with the dirty streaks
Of the tears that had dried on his little cheeks.
Flick was none of your tender sort;
Philanthropy never had been his forte;
But the look of the child was so wofully sad
That he stopped and sp.ke to the little lad,
And got the story I'll tell to you,
Since it only requires a line or two;
His mother had died in a drunken tit,
He was hungry, and that was the whole of it.
Flick, as you know, was all jprimed for a
spree ;
All the same he aid, "Come with me!'
And took the child to his narrow den,
And fed him and kept him that night, and
then,
To eut it short, he put up the tin
lie hud labored so Ion- :iud so hard to win, , i,ts tju. Ivt.01.,is shoW that Kobert rat
Anil started the boy n the paper trade, I terson, the wife, ami his father, AVil
Y here he prospered well and a living made. J .. ' ' , ,, l4.
ham ralterson, the Baltimore mer-
Then Flick returned to his ancient ways.
And loafed and begged through the listless
days;
Cracking, by way of amusing folk
An occasional rummy and senile joke;
But what is the funniest thing to mo,
He always thought he had had that spree,
And bragged about, it to every one
That for once in his life he had had some fun.
He died in the course of time and went,
I make no doubt, to his punishment ;
I For, of course, such a wretched old sinner
as he
Could stand no show in eternity.
There's just one tiling to his credit though
He didn't ask to be born, you know.
Xein York Graphic.
THREE AMERICAN PEERESSES.
How Tlirte Halt imoio Sisfcrs Ilecame
lifsju-ct ivoly tlic Iuclitss ol" J.ci-tls, tlie
niarcJiioiitrss of Wollesli'y, uml lmly
Stnflord.
From Appleton's. Journal.
In this centennial period, the links
which connect
the last century of
American freedom with the presented!
tury of American progress are few, and
are gradually loosening and dropping
apart.
Time's effacing fingers will soon ob
literate the general memory of a group
of brilliant Baltimore beauties, the
most celebrated by far in that city, re
nowned for its beautiful women . They
come from the stirring times of the
eighteenth century into our own day,
for one died high m honor in England
only last year; and one, with indomita-
bl
le will and vitality, still lives-Madamc
Bonaparte, wife of Jerome, King of .
W estphaba, whose name and romantic ;
career will come only incidentally into j
this sketch. Of three of the compan-;
" v .
ions of her youth, the story is almost as
remarkable as that of "Petsy" Patter- j
-on . !
hi the year 1S7-1, there was admitted
to probate, in the Orphans1 Court of
Baltimore, the will of "the most noble
1 . 1 -I 1 1
Louise Catherine Duchess-Dowaircr of
, , . , , ,. . , ' A
Leeds, widow and relict of the iiio-t
, , ' ,. . , ,,
noble 1-rancis (lodolnhin 1 rev ( )s-.
, 11 , , ,',
borne, .seventh Duke ol Leeds, ot Horn-!.,.
. c , .,
by ( astle, m the couutv of l ork, Eng-
, " , ., ' '
laud.
, -r i ,, .
. 1 'til i. ij 1 1 j i 1 111. '.'I
noble Catherine,' as if she had stepped
out of one of Shak-qeare"s )lavs, was
the survivor of three sisters, daughters I
if 1 ? 1 1 -1 1 .i (''.tun Mnit 1 1 i M-n-
,. , , ,. ..,', ' ' i
v. arrou, ami gramioaugnters oi narics
Carroll , of Carrollton, "the signd'."' i
She left I'xjifiisive estates in Maryland,
and Virginia, principally to religions
iki In A 1 lixrli! in- 'iiiiiitT AT-iit
, , , .. "' .... ' ' ,.
land, alone lie some littecn thoi.-and ,
aeres, known ami this is one chief
reason for mentioning the fact by such
curious old patent-survey titles :is
"Anthracite Pange,'' "Fat Pig,'1
"Addition to Fat l'ig,"' "Devil Take
It,'1 "Take All,1' "Last Shift,"
' ' Baron Devilbess
or, from some fan-
.ied
resemblance to the objects,
"Legs,1 "Cuii," and other equally
quaint designations.
We have said that the Duche. of :
Leeds was a granddaughter of Charles !
Carroll of Carrollton. The father left
two daughters, the eldest married to
Pichard Caton, of English birth, but a
7 7
citizen of Paltimore; the vounge-it to
Pobert (Joodloe Harper. From the
latter, Mrs. Harper, the Bayards, of
Delaware, inherit much of their tal
ents. It was of her daughter, Mrs.
Mary Sophia Bayard, that dohn Kan
dolph of Koanoke wrote the crabbed
old man could pay a graceful coinpii-
nient when Ik; chose " Washington is j
dull, although Mrs. Bayard is here'1 j
flattery delicate enough from him, the '
subtle bouquet of old times. I
Mi
and Mrs.
C'aton had four daugh- !
ters, who would have been called
"the 0 races, 11 but for being one too
many .
Three of them are, however, known
in England as the "Three American
Peeresses.'1
They were respectively, Duchess of
Leeds, Marchioness of "Wellesley, and
Lady Stafford.
The eldest was Mary Caton, who
married first Kobert Patterson, the
brother of Madame .Bonaparte. The
marriage ceremony was performed by
Bishop Carroll, of the Catholic Church,
in the chapel of Mr. Charles Carroll's
private residence in Annapolis, ft was
the most brilliant wedding that had
ever taken place in that State. AVith
her husband, she went to England just
previous to the Bonaparte-Patterson
marriage, and Ave find Kobert Patterson
bothered beyond measure, while in
Europe, with the affairs of his sister
"Betsy,11 his slippery brother-in-law
Jerome, and the angry First Consul.
He tried to pour oil on the troubled wa
ters; but he might as well have trickled
it out of a cruet upon the Atlantic
Ocean. The final catastrophe soon
came the separation; the second mar
riage of Jerome ; the persistent refuel
I of recognition . Through sill the trou-
chant-prince, acted very manly, frank,
and honorable parts.
Mrs. Patterson had been joined abroad
by her sisters, Elizabeth and Louisa
C'aton. They were in Paris when Wel
lington and the allies entered, and were
conspicuous figures in the festivities
which followed. They were favorites
of the great Duke himself, and it is said
that he found his "Waterloo in the fair
presence of Mrs. Kobert Patterson, and
that only the trilling impediment of a
husband on her part, and a wife on his,
prevented her becoming the head of
Apslcy I louse .
Her sister Louisa became the wife of
the Duke's aide-de-camp, Sir Felton
Bathurst-llervey, baronet. I'pon his
i death, soon after he committed suicide
i she married the Marquis of Car
marthen, eldest son of the Duke of
j Leeds, who inherited his father's title,
. .,, i;v.(l ., V1V ,..,,..,1 fnvj, ,,;, r
j ctmiitrv life, and left his widow, the
j Catherine Louisa, who, as we have
I seen, died last year, an ample fortune,
and the dower-house of Hornby Castle.
The second sister, Elizabeth Caton,
also married well that, is, she married
a nobleman, and he was rich the
eighth Lord Stafford, of the Jerninghnm
family.
In the meanwhile Kobert Patterson
had died, and Mrs. Patterson, a lovely
i vi(lmv ? roluni0(I to Klll,:m(i.
s:ll1v ,,.. ,,.., .,.,.,, ';.. t , . ,
Paris dav. and the time of the. Arniv of
'imi , ...
that ioil ? m S0(.ial Hrdes, ,0
, ()ml,m hpr tl.iuni hs wm rei)eatt.tl
;lm, s!u, (,mM SO(m I)o;lstof ll:ivil I)(l(M)
th( SO(.i:lI (metM1 of thmi countries,
the social queen
KlvJ.hlwl Fnuu.0
thr,c vV L()m
x-
ind America, and of
omion, rans ami Ualti-
more. Nor was this all. After her
second marriage she conquered the tur
bulent Ir -land, and the still more tur
i.nL.i.t i . 1.1:,. r. ... ..1.,,
"(Ill-Ill lU"Hil, IWt SIIL" lIUU.lllll- UIU IU-
. . .' .. ... ,. , ...
1 of the Marquis ot Wellesley, iceroyof
, , , , 1 . . ' ,
Ireland, previously dovernor-deneral
. T .. ' 1 , , ,
oi India, and the brother oi the Duke ot
... ; ,. ....
.Wellington, a diamond edition ot a
; ., .. ,. ,, , .
! British nobleman, as Hazhtt calls him ,
so gifted, small and irraceful wa- he.
! Thus we see the "three American
peere--:
which
es" tirmlv fixed among the stars
revolve nearest the English
When we consider that only
throne
five American ladies have ever
wedded
the possc-sors of Briti-h coronet. the
other two being Miss Magrmler, of
Washington, who married Baron Abin-
ger, and Miss Bingham, of Philadel-
ihia, whose husband, Alexander Bar-
! . . . .
1 1 1 ii , h;i liiisrii n nn' pi-ci;igi- ill id).
as Baron Ashburton and that of thee
live three belonged to one family, the
ilistingui.shed one in American history of
Charles Carroll the fact has an addi
tional interest , which justifies a few
reminiscences of an elder day ami gen
eration .
Many citizens of Baltimore reineiu
I ber, as visions of t heir youth , the beau-
t.l--.l Al" . . '1-1 .1
111,11 M1Sj"'s 1 ;uo- 'U'' gi'"uemen
of th oll -"""l. "'ho still remain with
us' :l,m 1',!l:,IH :1" 1110 ,inu ul(l "'y
hd'I softn.'ss of manners which are too
,,fl(n :l dumb sarcasm on those of our
........ 1 TT .li. i.ll. P.l
1"'1L '""'ni age, oengm io uuk oi xue
time when the Carrolls, the Bidglevs,
the Olivers, and the (Jilmors, disjilayed
the hospitality of merchant-princes,
and when their wives ami daughters act
ed all their lives the stately parts we
revive now for the amusement of an
evening.
1 h)' ten us that Elizabeth Caton,
'ho became Lady Stafford, was tall
:lll- remarkably graceful, with eyes of
dark gray, expressing quickly both
feeling and intelligence. She was more
highly cultivated in literature than her
sisters, and her society was more large-
ly sought by men of letters, and the
statesmen and thinkers of the time,
than by the ordinary beaux of society,
for her mental qualities were brilliant
and attractive. At the time of her wo
manhood it was an important part of
education to cultivate a talent for con
versation. If a man of celebrity at a
dinner-party or elsewhere began to
speak on an interesting subject, it. was
the custom for all the guests to listen to
him, and if replied to, as was often the
case, the encounter became a spirited
debate, or a sharp cut and thrust of
wit. Ladies never entered the Held at
dinner; but at evening parties their
share in these contests wa. conceded
them, and among those who carried
off the palm of victory most often was
Miss Elizabeth Caton. She was less
admired in Europe, however, than her
more showy sisters.
The third daughter, Louisa Caton,
afterward Duchess of Leeds, was small
of stature, but a beautiful figure, light
and agile in all her movements, her
conversation gay and playful, but com
monplace. She had, however, her
own peculiar charms, although in umn-
ners she differed from her sisters. Her
; admirers were a different style of men;
and she was what is known, by a deli
cate shade of distinction from more
solid merits, as a great "belle.11
It is upon the eldest sister, Mary
Caton, first Mrs. Kobert Patterson, and
then Marchioness of Wellesley, that we
find the most extravagant encomiums
lavished . Old men grew young again
in describing her fascinations. Said a
gentleman, an intimate friend of the
j family, one who passed his younger
days under the roof of Charles Carroll;
"Mary Caton was the most attractive
woman I ever beheld in my life. I have
seen the courts of St. Petersburg,
France, and England, but I never saw
her equal never! The graee and ele
gance of her form; the charm of her
manners; the sweetness of her voice
wen; inimitable. She was the most en
gaging ami fascinating of human be-
i wigs, l have seen her at a dinner given
by Mr. Carroll to Sir Charles Bagot,
the loveliest and most brilliant lady of
an intelligent and courtly company,
stately, courteous, kindly; richly
dressed, and in a blaze of diamonds
a picture for a court-painter."
Her bearing was as exquisite as her
face, and her dignity never rallied.
This was one of her greatest charms
her courteous, graceful, even tempera
ment. "Were the obscurest commoner
talking to her and a king waiting, -die
would have shown no impatience. Her
companion would never have known by
a shadow of change that he was not the
most interesting of men to her. She
was too proud and well bred to exhibit
the slightest discourtesy; but she would
have much preferred the king. For, after
all, in all her nature she was a woman
of the world, of fashion and of society
subdued, nevertheless, by the maxim
impressed upon all these young girls by
Mrs. Caton, who was not pretty, but
very popular a maxim extremely sim
ple, but socially extremely comprehen
sive. It was this: "My dear child,
there arc a number of people in the
world who take delight in saying disa
greeable things. Xow, it is jut as easy
to say pleasant, ones. Never tell an un
truth; but never displease."
In personal appearance Miss Mary
Caton was large and handsome. Her
eyes were dark brown ; her face oval and
rather sallow : her hair dark : her mouth ,
nose, and chin, beautifully formed: her
voice soft and musical. Lord Broug
1 1 r l
nam, wno ;as a .cotcliman was, we
suppose, a judge in matters pertaining
to a foreign tongue we beg everv
Scotchman's pardon and who certainly
acquired a copious command of strong
Saxon, once said that .she spoke the
English language more correctly than
he had ever heard it from the lips of
woman. She was, nevertheless, no
blue-stocking, but possessed both sound
judgment and a tine perception. She
was an excellent talker, and what prob
ably fascinated Brougham, a still better
listener. While at the head of the vice-
royal court at J)ublin she united all
parties, Protestant and Catholic, al
though a strict Catholic herself. Her
charities wen? as free as her means
would allow, and even to this day her
memory is cherished by the poor of
Dublin as that of a saint.
On the death of her husband, she
lived in England in chambers granted
her by the Queen in the honorable re
treat of Hampton Court.
All the sisters were devoted to their
religion, the Catholic, but were no
bigots. Their acquaintances comprised
both Protestants and Catholics. They
never forgot old friends. However
fortune would turn the scale, whether
to poverty or to riches, former associ
ates, we are told, wore never ignored.
The three sisters died childless ; and
the direct descendants of Charles Car
roll of Oarrolkon eame down by the
line of the only son, Charles Carroll,
of Homewwod, near Baltimore, and by
that of the Harpers and MaeTavishes.
In Maryland, the "three American
peeresses" hav long been but a
shadowy presence in old mansions of
Baltimore and Annapolis, and grateful
memories in the hearts of the young
gallants who met them at the balls and
assemblages of long ago, and perhaps
who knows? time buries the marks
of much besides beauty cherished the
passion of "the moth for the star, the
day for the morrow," and who have
grown gray, but never disloyal.
The crop of broom-corn in the Mo
hawk (X.Y.) Valley promises to be less
than that last year with the usual
weather the rest of the season, con
siderably less. Some large areas of 50
to 100 acres and less are very backward
and often thin, and will amount, unless
under very favoring circumstances of
weather, to little or nothing. From a
careful estimate made by those interest
ed, the area in the Mohawk Valley
planted with broom-corn the present
season is 400 acres less than last vear.
William C. Ralston.
The following personal sketch of the.
late William C. Kalston, President of
the suspended Bank of California, who
committed suicide by drowning, is from
a San Francisco telegram to the Chica
go Inler-Occan:
Personally, Kalston was no less re
markable a man than his operations
would imply. Each morning at the
bank he received hundreds of visitors
men who had projects to promote, men
who wanted to share in his ventures,
men who wanted his indorsement of
their schemes, who came to him for ad
vice, to borrow money, to consult about
the politics of California, Oregon, or
Nevada, in all which he took active
part, making and unmaking candidates,
Congressmen, Governors, and county
officials and to all he gave quick, rap
id attention , exhibiting marvelous mas
tery of details ; determining with aston
ishing rapidity, and acting a-lniost as
soon as he had determined. His rejec
tion of a project was almost invariably
fatal to it, his indorsement almost as
invariably seemed to insure its success,
until his mere commendation itself
was taken as certain augury of profit.
Among his most potent agencies was
the press. As often as a new paper
was started on the Pacific slope the ad
vertising card of the bank was inserted,
and, of course, at the highest rates,
and kept standing the year through.
He knew how to reach the press of this
coast, too, and has wielded it almost
wholly until very recently, when the
ring operating against him secured its
organs and forced the fight on him vig
orousl. Put at the close of business hours his
business for the dav was ended. No
matter what great operations were do
pending in the. balance, on leaving the
bank he gave himself up wholly to the
entertainment of the guests with which
his palatial residence at Belmont w:w
ever filled. In that oft-described pala
tial establishment, in the maintenance
of which he is reported to have spent
?2."),000 per month, there was no car
rying of the shop into the parlor. He
was a splendid host, entertaining like a
prince in most princely fashion. His
table was furnished for forty guests
daily. There were sixty elegantly
fit ted-up guest chambers in the palace
at Belmont. All the appointments and
surroundings were on a scale of Oriental
magnificence, and the spacious grounds
lighted with colored lanterns from hun
dreds of gas-jets at night presented the
appearance of some fairy palace.
Thither he invited every notable who
visited California , and as well as every
one who had the smallest claim upon
his hospitality. Every thing about the
place at Belmont was princely, and
there, in princely fashion, Kalston en
tertained all who came with the same
quick tact in matters social that distin
guished him in his business operations,
lie was a man of princely tastes, and
enjoyed to the full princely living. But
there was none of the brutal coarseness
of a Fisk about him . His residence was
a piece of magnificent display, but
in all about it, though in many
things florid, there was nothing
actually vulgar. He was a man of some
culture, too, and was always rain of
the society of literary folk , and no cor
respondent of a newspaper ever visited
California who was permitted to escape
Kalston's hospitalities even if he would.
In a business sense, too, this wholesale
entertaining was an important feature
in Kalston's operations. He took to his
house every capitalist who visited Cali
fornia ; every prominent politician
whose influence might be worth having;
every newspaper man. whose letters
might alVect public opinion, and, with
the innumerable schemes which the
bank had on foot , this vast entertaining
was a vast lobbying continuously kept,
up . The sad termination of his career
has arrested all cavil. To-night we
speak of Kalston, not as a cheat he
never was so spoken of but as a. man
of wide sympathies and open-handed
generosity. His thousand unobtrusive
charities, the untold times he has ex
tended a helping hand to small trades
men and needy adventurers, are re
membered now. AVith all Ins regal
sumptuousne.ss--and lie enjoyeu u. as
never did born king this king of Cali
fornia was a soft-hearted, generous fel
low, who never turned a deaf ear to n
tale of suffering, and whose generosity
Avas in truth of princely prodigality.
Moralize about it as you will, to the last,
old Californians will pronounce William
C. Kalston "a brick."
MissBkkd, an American Amazon,
entered the jumping-ring at a recent
horse show in London, and when, after
she had got her horse three times over
his fences, he jumped deliberately into
the pond, she kept her seat bravely,
and brought the ugly little hunter out
amid the applause of 20,000 people.

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