Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-08-31
WORCESTER
SATURDAY. AUGUST 81. 1879.
Biographical Notes.

some time with MS grandfather, IN the south
part Of this county. In this city, he completed
his preparation for college, and made it so ex-
iensive and thorough that he entered the sophie
more class. 1t was in 1886, when he was twenty
years old. that he entered that class in Brown
University. After completing his college course,
Mr. Jacques spent several years in Virginia, as a
teacher. He made friends in Virginia, and soma
Of the friendships formed there were continued
until his death, being kept alive and active by
After the war, he found OPP
to render valuable services TO some of
bis Virginia friends.
In 1S47, sometime after his return to Worces-
ter, Mr.. Jacques was elected a member of the
school board, a position for which he had rare
qualifications. From that time, he was mem
her of this board almost continuously, until his |
death, being always attentive to his duties, and |
always one of the most efficient and useful men |
that have ever served the city in that way. In |
1869, he was made chairman of the high school |
committee; and he remained chairman of this |
committee TO the end of his life. In the school |
board, we are sure, his death will be felt as a
loss to the city, for he had capacity for useful
ness IN connection with the schools, and an in
terest in them, which made him so important to
the. board, that it will not be easy to fill the
place his death has made vacant. He was spec
tally adapted to this work, not only by natural
aptitude, but, also, by his thorough education
and his training as teacher.
In education and general culture Mr. Jacques
was among the foremost of our most accom-
plished citizens. In college he was among the
best in scholarship; but he had vast amount
TO learning which was acquired after he left
college, for which, in fact, his college studies
were only the preparation. He had knowledge
of several modern languages and was the most
thorough and accurate French scholar with
whom we have ever had much intercourse.
He was alive to the movements OF
thought and the revelations of science; and
he had studied various important topics of the
time very carefully. He was accustomed 10
study thoroughly every subject that he dealt
with practically. This made him scientific as
well as practical horticulturist. The Transac-
tons of the Worcester County Horticultural So
ciety, and many of his articles in horticultural
and other publications, bear witness to his &C
quirements in this science. We wish his knowl-
edge of horticulture could have been given to
the world in some more permanent form.
In the year 1856, Mr.. Jaques spent six or eight
months in Europe; and being well prepared to
make the most OF such visit to the old world,
his tour proved TO be very pleasant and useful
/ gave his active mind new inspirations, which
became permanent influences in his subsequent
studies and activities. His wealth gave him
leisure; but he was always at work; and he
never refused TO serve the city in any way in
which he felt sure of being useful. He
did excellent service as secretary Of the COM
mittee on shade trees and public grounds. AT
the time of his death he was a director of the
public library, and also secretary of the
trustees of the city hospital. He was frank,
upright, and honorable; no man was more so;
but he was reserved in his manners, and was not
easily won to familiar and confidential inter
course. Not many lives are so pure as his, and
not many characters so worthy of respect.
The duties of a reporter on city newspaper
as commonly understood, are many and varied,
and some of them disagreeable enough. He
must be ever on the watch for news and is
obliged to seek it often in unpleasant places, and
to cultivate acquaintance whose society is by
no means improving or attractive. He is
forced to see many repulsive sights and to hear
many things that can give no pleasure. Much
of his work he is obliged to do hastily and i'm
perfectly; he is often confused by the multitude
OF matters claiming his attention; he is never
e IL 1
work is done for the night he is liable to be
called out again TO look up a rumored fire, rob
berry, or murder, which perhaps, after leading
him tiresome CHASE, turns out to be nothing
at all, relief no doubt to the persons directly
interested but in some measure a vexatiOn to
the reporter, who, like other people, is not
altogether pleased when he has moth
ing to show for his work. All these
disagreeables and some others are incident
to the reporters ordinary work anywhere. Me
tropolitan journalism, as our New York friends
like to call it, involves others of different kind.
In addition 20 the duties imposed upon him
elsewhere, the New York reporter is required to
become the interviewer and to annoy, fatter or
exasperate, as the case may be, by his presence
or native pugilist, murderer or the family of
the murderer's victim, political celebrity or a
woman Of the town, anybody who has a tenn
porary notonety. 1t must be highly unpleas
ant, for one who is capable of better things, to
be Obliged to write column or two of rubbish
about a Russian princes boots and neckties, to
construct long conversation with a senator on
fhaa ,fsa,
trunks, or TO cruelty torment with i'm
pudent questions a wife whose hus-
band has just absconded; but il is pos
sible that the men who do these
things are not capable of anything much better
AT any late they are under orders and do as
they are bid, apparently without demur. Lat
terly the duties expected OF reporters have been
somewhat enlarged. A newspaper manager
sends one off to Africa to find a lost explorer
and to write letters which, notwithstanding the
strongest proofs Of their substantial truth ire
sistibly impel readers to doubt whether he has
made the journeys he describes. Another is
directed to explore the sources of the Mississip-
p in canoe and, last Of all, another, as his en-
ployer says, under instructions from this Of
fee" is required TO undertake what the respect
able Evening Post cals''sneak thiel journalism"
make his way by false pretences into a private
lunatic asylum and publish the sensational, but
SO far not instructive details of what he did
and saw on his way and while lie was detained
there. In this last performance there is some
thing ludicrous as well as disreputable.
1t is difficult to say that such trick for
such purpose could never be justifable, but
IL seems pretty clear that no results which can
reasonably be expected from these revelations
will excuse the means used to obtain them. If
the young man who has been making researches
into the management of the Bloomlngdale asy-
lum had aetedon his own motion, he would have
made more respectable figure; the inconsider-
ateness Of youth and the natural fondness for
adventure might have excused his conduct; but
When we learn that this young gentleman ca
pered about talked nonsense, and played the
mounteDank under instructions from the office,
our respect Tor him and the office sensibly de-
creases, and the affair assumes an aspect almost
too mean to be laughable
The New York Tribune, and the democrats
who support Mr.. Greeley, profess to regard the
coming Louisville convention as a very insig.
ni6eant affair This opinion Of il may be cor
rect. We notice that anti-Greeley democrats
are orpanizino aud uovtnu In o,,ar,,. ,,,.. s.r A,