Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1875-08-20

He can keen track of Three Hundred
a;E;lE.. HaIS6Whe: az. he knows about Horace
The most notable memory possess
sed BY any man in the United States
perhaps, is that of Alfred Dueling, a
humble colored man employed as a
hat rack waiter at Metropolitan Ho-
tel in this city. sAlfredis apparent
ly about thirty-fiVe years of age, and
is bright and intelligent in appear
anee. He has the faculty of remem-
bering faces, names, facts ETC., that
is very wonderful indeed. If fifty
men are in a. room, and all are
strangers to him, he can walk around
and enquire the name of each, and
then go round again and call every
man by his proper name. Read a
page of book to this remarkable
person, and he will repeat the whole
afterward from memory. He can
keep the accounts of the steward of
the hotel IN his head a week or a
month at a time, with items, expen7
ditnres, etc., correctly, thus consti-
tuting himself a mental day-book and
ledger. |
The most curious illustration of
Alfred's powers is his remembering
hats. It is his particular business at
the hotel stand in the ante-room
leading to the dining hall to receive
the hats of guests as they pass in
Alfred takes the hats and places
them on a rack, and when eachl
guest comes out of the dining-room
the particular guest is handed his
hat. 1t has been said that this coll
ored man can remember four hun
dred hats and the face of persons to
whom they belonged, as he did on
one occasion when there was q large
fashionable ball at the Academy of
music. He told the Mercury re-
porter, however, that four hundred
was too high a figure, and an exag
eratioR Circulated by some of his
sanguine and enthusiastic friends; !;
"but," said he, 81 can remember
three hundred without any difficulty
at all. have handled during the /
past fourteen years that 1 have been
in the business, the hats of the most
distin guished men in the land"
"There's poor Uncle Horace.
Greeley-bless his heart!-Pve put
up hisl famous white hat, and bis
Black hats TOO, on the rack scores Of
times" His head was twenty-fourI
inches, and was as wide in front as
it was at the back. In this respect
Uncle Horace was different from
most persons. Nineteen men out
of twenty have hats the inside
of which fitting their heads resemble
pear, the forehead being narrow
and the back wide. The founder of
the ,zsSb4ae seldom took his hat
from Alfred 4 without bestowing a
quarter of o dollar for the taking
care of his tile. He was very Hber-
eEal in this respect. Alfred always
watched Horace to see that. the lat
ter did not, in a fit Of absentminded7
ness, put his hat on hind side be-
fore. ..,7o
lgdOne time the great editor had his
hat full of scraps cut from the news
papers, and when he took it off his
head the scraps flew all over the floor
and some Of them few out of an
open window. Somewhat angry at
the occurrence, Mr.. Greeley exelaim-
ed, "There, nowl See, there they
kgo-all the material for to-morrow's
editorialsf' y Several of the walters
who were standing near hastily
| gathered up all tho fiuttering pieces
Of paper that could hbe found and
returned them 20 the editor, The
famous journalist looked them over
and said, "Well, all that / care
about are here, except one about
Chinese Cody Labor. will give
anybody FIVE dollars who will find
that for me-" The prospect of
gaining this reward induced the
| walters and bell boys to make ViG.-