Molly Bawn, by The Duchess [Margaret Wolfe Hamilton]. Originally published 1878.

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Prof. Samuel A. King, the aeronaut, made his two hundred and eleventh ascension on Saturday from Scranton. The balloon used for the occasion was the mammoth “King Carnival,” which requires 25,000 feet of gas for inflation. The story of the voyage can best be told in the words of the aeronaut himself:

“When I escaped the steeple,” he narrated last night, “I turned to salute the crowd, but I was traveling so fast that I guess they failed to see me. It was blowing a perfect gale. Seven minutes after the start I was on a level with the lower cloud strata, or 4,000 feet above the earth. Down below I could see nothing but woods and mountains. I was then rushing through the air at a terrible rate. I had never experienced anything like it before since my Boston ascension several years ago, when I made thirty miles in twenty-five minutes. In nine minutes from the start I got into the second strata of clouds and passed from sight. I then endeavored to keep the balloon down by allowing the gas to escape, so as to keep it from getting into the sunshine. The heat of the clouds, however, caused the gas to expand, and I passed upward again. Looking up I saw a mist, or haze. In a moment more I was above this again, and by making calculations I found that I was two miles up. At the juncture the expansion caused the gas to overflow, and I began to descend; nearing the earth I found nothing under me but woods and forests. The wind was howling through them, and the swaying of the trees produced a sound like a mighty roar. The idea of making a landing there was frightful, and so, throwing out ballast, I went up again. This time I went up into clear air, with nothing above me but the clear, blue sky. All this time I was rushing along at a glorious rate. At an altitude of three miles the sun was very hot, a circumstance which helped me to get rid of the chills which the wind had given me. After traveling on at this altitude about an hour and a half, I determined to make a descent. When I reached the clouds, the sudden coolness caused accelerated speed downward, and I had to throw out all the ballast I had to check it. Through the rifts in the clouds I could see that the country I was passing over was richly cultivated. I got the drag-rope and anchor ready. Presently I heard the noise of a river, which I took to be the Delaware, but which afterward proved to be the Schuylkill. I continued to descend, and at last came to the ground in a field. I threw out the drag-rope, which trailed along the tops of the trees, serving to break my speed. Reaching about thirty feet from the ground, I threw out my anchor, and, taking my collapsing cord in one hand and the valve cord in the other, waited to see what would turn up. Presently the force of the wind sent the balloon over till it touched the ground, uprooting the anchor, and the car, suddenly released, was thrown forward with terrific force toward a pile of fences. These I managed to clear, and then realizing the danger, I decided to use the collapsing cord, which slit the balloon open on one side from top to bottom. The movement of the car was, however, so rapid that in a moment it dashed against a long fence, which it knocked down like a piece of paper, and went away across a field, coming like a broadside against a tree. I managed to jump out just in time to escape the crash. It still continued to rock to and fro and in a little while the branches of the tree had torn it to pieces. Shortly afterward a crowd of countrymen came up and I found that I was in the grounds of the Perkiomen Company, three-quarters of a mile from Oak Station, Montgomery County. When I first touched earth it was ten minutes to two o’clock, so that I had made 140 miles inside of two hours. The country men helped me to pack up the fragments, and here I am again, as safe and sound as ever. But I have never been through the air at that rate, I can tell you, and the landing was anything but a pleasant experience. It is one consolation that, gale or no gale, I shall have no terra firma to encounter in my ocean voyage.”–Philadelphia Record.

There are any number of indications that there is on foot a plan to force the nomination of Grant for the next Presidential vacancy. It scarcely needed the confirmatory information in another column from Boston, concerning the proposed series of grand receptions to be given Grant on his return from his Old World vagabondizing. This Boston revelation is simply an incident among many others, all tending in the same direction. It may be, and probably is, true, as stated in this scheme, that New York politicians will furnish the money for these public receptions, and that they expect to secure a return for the money invested. Both are probably true, the latter more especially. It has never been doubted by intelligent men, familiar with Grant’s administration, that he could be used by individuals to further private ends. The number of presents which he received, the vastness of the fortune he accumulated in a few years, and the rascally character of many of his appointments and personal friends, all go to show that Grant did not limit the employment of his powers as President to the Constitutionally and honestly belonging to his office. There was more corruption, malfeasance, rascality, swindling, speculation and deviltry generally under Grant’s Administration than during any other period in our history.

The men who grew wealthy from subsidy-schemes, the whisky rings, fluctuations in gold and Government securities, and in the scores of other dishonest practices connected with Grant’s official career, are the men who wish to see him once more in the White House. They are yearning for the return of the–to them–golden era of rascality, when honesty in office was the exception, and plunder the rule. To this class is added another large one whose members believe that Grant is the only man whom the party can elect. To them party is of more consequence than aught else, and they would welcome the nomination of Grant, were he thrice as culpable as he is, upon the assurance that he is the only man who could be elected. There are still others who, never having believed in Grant’s mercenary character, and his unfitness for office, still remember him as the man who received the sword of Lee, and who are willing as a matter of gratitude to keep him in the Presidential chair for life. All these classes make up a powerful element who may be able to overpower the good sense of others who fully understand this enigmatical humbug, but who are men in whom the sense of party allegiance is stronger than their convictions of right.

The tremendous onslaught which has been made on the South by so many of the party organs, and by certain officials, means the nomination of Grant. It is true that the President in his message only claimed that there had been any interference in the elections in two of the Southern States, and even then, only in certain parts of these. However, facts seem to be of no consequence to the party organs, and therefore they are teeming with denunciations of the entire South. Their purpose is to “fire the Northern heart;” to convey the idea that the entire South is in a state of rebellion, and that the country needs a strong arm to restrain these rebels. In due season Grant will be presented as the strong arm, and his nomination will be urged as that of the only man who can suppress the new rebellion. Stupid, malignant and insensate as are these indiscriminate attacks upon the entire South, they will have weight among that large class which feels much and reasons little, and takes for gospel whatever may be placed before it by its party press.

The proposed receptions have no connection whatever with a desire to do Grant personal honor. They are purely political. They are a part of the mortifying farce which has been in progress in the Old World ever since Grant landed on its shores. There Grant has never received a single personal compliment. Every reception given him, every honor of which he has been the recipient, have been paid to the country, of which, as ex-President, he was to some extent the representative. There is not a single city of any account which he has visited in which, in private, he has failed to be the subject of endless ridicule and caricature. Everywhere his boorish manners, his lack of knowledge of the ordinary forms of polite society, his sullen silence, and his intemperance have made him a more marked character than even his position as an ex-President and and ex-General. The reports about his having been offered the Bulgarian throne are simply silly lies, invented to give him consequence on this side [of] the water, and give him an impetus for the Presidential nomination. King of Bulgaria! Grant could not, to-day, secure the position of Constable on the London police force. He hasn’t the sobriety the patience, the dignity, that are essential to the position.–Chicago Times (Ind.)

A reporter for the Sun some time ago made the acquaintance of a gentleman in Livingston County, who is himself a living illustration of the carelessness with which an excited mob of men are accustomed to fool with a man’s life if they once get him into their clutches. The gentleman alluded to is now in the city, en route with his family to Texas, which State he will make his future home, and from him permission was obtained to make use of the following facts:

The most of our readers are familiar with the details of the murder of Marks, the Evansville commercial traveler, at a point between the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, known as “The Narrows,” several years ago. The name of the murderer was Sullivant, and he was a merchant at the point named and was in the habit of buying goods of the firm for which Marks was traveling. Marks, on his rounds, called on him as usual. Sullivant invited him to spend the night with himself in the store. That was the last ever seen of the unfortunate “drummer” alive. His mutilated remains were subsequently exhumed from a grave near by, where they had been placed by Sullivant, who undoubtedly slew him for the purpose of robbery.

But with the strange fatality which so often pursues the perpetrator of a great crime, the criminal makes some blunder, which almost invariably makes his detection easy. In this case Sullivant sent a forged receipt for moneys paid and a receipted order for more goods. The firm, knowing that the documents were not in the handwriting of their agent, retained them. And when it was ascertained that he had disappeared, in the hands of detectives they at once furnished the clew which, in the end, secured the capture and conviction of the real criminal.

This is simply as a preface to the story of Mr. George W. McGee.

While the officers were searching for a clue to the whereabouts of Marks, some one, whose name McGee, to this day, does not know, artfully threw suspicioins on Mr. McGee. This suspicion was fanned and kept alive by Sullivant. The result was that McGee was one night taken from his bed by a mob of armed men, a rope attached to his neck, the other end of which was attached to the pommel of a saddle, and away he went. Arriving at a lonely spot in the woods–and one who has ever traveled the country “between the rivers,” as it is called, knows that there are many places in that locality peculiarly adapted to deeds of violence–the rope was detached from the saddle, and while these midnight marauders gathered around by the light of a lantern illuminated by the faint glare of one sickly candle, the line was thrown over the low-hanging branches of a tree, made taut, and McGee at the same time informed that he had better speedily make his peace with God, as he had but a few moments to live. He was urged by the leader to tell the whereabouts of Marks’ remains and, if any, his accomplices in the “taking off.” As McGee was entirely innocent of any knowledge of the dark deed, of course he could only answer that he knew nothing about it. His assertion, “So help me God, gentlemen, I never saw or heard of the man before in my life,” was answered by the remark from Sullivant himself, “George that is too thin!” Mr. McGee says that he distinctly saw the lantern wave twice in the air. He was lifted bodily from the ground into the air; he knew that he was being drawn up over the limb by the rope. There was no pain as long as he was ascending. When he settled back, however, with a slight jerk, his suffering was excruciating. He could feel his eyes turn suddenly into balls of fire and protrude from their sockets. He tried to scream, but no sound issued from his throat. His arms were unpinioned and he endeavored to raise his hands, so as to grasp the rope above his head, that he might relieve that terrible shortening of his breath, which seemed, at each muscular attempt at respiration, as if the air would escape from his lungs and force itself out through the pores of the skin on his breast and back. The muscles of the arm refused to obey his will. His joints experienced a sensation similar to that one would imagine the piercing of red-hot needles would produce. The knees twitched and jerked convulsively. All this in apparently a minute of time. Then a delicious sensation of “cool numbness,” to use his own words, commencing at his extremities, stole gradually over him. He lost all desire to save himself–he preferred to die where he was. Almost every act of his life–no matter how trivial–flashed through his mind with the rapidity of lightning. A distant roar, as of a faraway cataract, grew gradually more and more distinct, until the fearful noise was almost deafening, then changed with the rapidity of thought itself into the most delicious music he had ever heard. Everything became as light as midday (although he could distinguish nothing of his surrounding), and finally unconsciousness. “It was not absolute unconsciousness, either,” said Mr. McGee. “I cannot describe it intelligibly. I do not know of any words that would convey to you a correct idea of the sensation–I was myself, and I was not myself. I seemed to be sailing away through space, as you have seen a large bird float through the atmosphere, without the apparent motion of a wing or feather. Another thing that is indelibly impressed upon my mind, was the terrible, oppressive, horrible silence–worse than silence–stillness, that existed above, below and about me. Still I floated on and on, perfectly contented, asking for nothing, thinking of nothing, hoping for nothing; ever, and with increasing rapidity, moving on and upward.”

But gradually, continued Mr. McGee, this perfectly contented, devil-may-care feeling commenced to disappear. He became conscious of bodily pain again. It seemed as if iron bands had been tightened with screws about his head and chest. He consciously grasped for breath. He heard voices–the words undistinguishable at first; then one or two, here and there, he understood. At last, fully restored to consciousness, he heard his captors quarreling fiercely as to whether he should be strung up again or carried to the Smithland Jail. He was lying on the ground his throat bleeding from the cruel rope, which still encircled his neck. Water was brought from a creek near by and dashed over him. And at last he was mounted upon a horse, and still in a half dazed condition moved away.

He arrived at Smithland about daylight, was locked up in the Jail, where he remained three days and was then released, Sullivant taking his place. The latter is now serving out a life sentence at Frankfort.

“And,” asked the reporter, “you think, then, you came near starting up the golden stairs, Mr. McGee?”

“Starting,” answered that gentleman, “I was already halfway up. They needn’t tell me, sir, there is no hereafter–no next world! I believe I have been nearer to it than any man alive. I do not know what kind of a world it is, but of life after death I am satisfied. You know that all the while I was floating upward my body was dangling by a rope to the limb of a tree, practically, sir, practically, as dead–as dead as a door-nail.”–Paducah (Ky.) Sun

On Lebanon itself, as well as in Cypress, cedars, we believe, have been known to attain to the height of a hundred and thirty feet, with proportionate bulk; whereas the largest in this country seem never to have exceeded the height of seventy-five feet, a difference which some naturalists have attributed to the colder and more ungenial climate of England. But there are mysteries in vegetation as well as in other things. The cold of Lebanon is in winter more severe than that experienced in England, though, on the other hand, the heat of summer is much greater, and these variations of temperature may possibly be necessary to develop the cedar in its full beauty and dimensions. The cypress in nearly all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean grows to a great height, though it increases so slowly in bulk, that many ages are necessary to bring it to perfection. The wood of this tree is of rare beauty, closeness and durability, for which reason it was selected by the Egyptians for the manufacture of mummy coffins, many of which, after having lain in the earth several thousand years, are still to all appearance as tough and serviceable as ever.

There is a sort of mythology in natural history which constructs its fables and legends after quite as marvelous a fashion as that habitually followed by the founders of wild creeds. Thus, not content with appealing to genuine history, in proof of the lasting qualities of cypress-wood, the old naturalists go back to Semiramis, and refer gravely to the bridge, all of this timber, which she is supposed to have thrown across the Euphrates, and which lasted no one knows how long. So, again, the philosopher Plato, when selecting the most durable material on which to write his laws, rejected brass, as of too fugitive a nature, and gave the preference to cypress wood. The cause of durability in this wood is what no one has explained, nor is it perhaps susceptible of explanation. It is easy to say that the timber in question is pervaded by a bitter juice, which repels all kinds of worms, so that it never presents, like many other kinds of wood, the appearance of being moth-eaten. To account, however, for its lasting qualities, we can only assume that Nature, by composing it of the finest particles piled slowly upon each other, pressed close and agglutinated by the laws of its organization, designed it to outlive temples and pyramids.–Chambers’ Journal.

Goldsmith, by William Black. Part of the English Men of Letters Series, edited by John Morley. London: Macmillan, 1878.

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History of English Humour; with an Introduction upon Ancient Humour, by Rev A G L’Estrange, volume 2 of 2.

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Gibbon [English Men of Letters Series], by James Cotter Morison. London: Macmillan. 1878.

PG 18851

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