The Portland daily press., 1877-05-23
Men and Xaman.


Only six women have been decorated with
.ne riooon OF the French Legion d'Honneur.
Inese are Rosa Bonheur, Lady Pigolt, who was
decorated by President Theirs, Mademoiselie
'ocner, who has founded hospital. and three
Lazy ouperiors of religious orders noted for
their charities
a. Graham Bell, inventor Of the speaking
Telephone, is a Scotchman by birth. He is
young, apparently not more than five and
thirty, with an unusually prepossessing coun-
tenance, very happy in its expression; of pale
complexion, with jet black hair brushed up
from his forehead, and pleasant, sparkling
black eyes--the face of a man all engaged in,
his work and finding satisfaction in it.
General Sherman. in Mary Clemmer's ewes
is as risky as kid. She supposes he can be-
pugnacious bear upon occasion, but when he
gets the chance to have "a good time" he has
IL with will. At a German he will dance
with more girls than any other man at the
theatre he will fly about and laugh and talk
with more people. 1t is said that he does not
think highly of the attributes of the feminine
mind in the aggregate; yet his appreciation is
open to exceptions. He insists upon having
the statues of Winnie Ream, and goes eyery
night to hear Mary Anderson.
Dion Boucicault tells this story of brother
actor: "A great many years ago-longer than
like to remember-I went to Philadelphia to
try one OF my pieces, Jessie Brown at one of
the theatres. A small actor was cast for a very
small part, that of Achmet, believe. He had
only six lines to speak and he took the stage
and spoke them like tragedian. called him
down and said: See here, young man, you are
not playing Othello! L know l amt he re-.
Piled, but will some day'-and then walked
OH, mutteripg something about punching nv
head. His prediction has come true. That had
Achmet, but good Othello, was John McCul.
lough"
MISS Kate Claxton, the actress, has written
q letter from Minneapolis, MIMI, in which she
complains bitterly of the annoyances to which
she has been subjected since the BROOKLYN
Theatre and the Southern Hotel, St. Louis
fires. She denies explicitly ever having had an
interview with any one in which she predicted
her death by flames. After speaking of the
silly superstition which induces the guests at
the hotels where she may stop to provide them
selves with rope ladders, and of the coarse tests
at her expense which sprinkle the columns of
the Western papers she says: s'Do YOU not
think with me that it would be acting the bet
ter part for the different writers to withhold
their rough jokes about my late terrible expert.
ence until the graves caused by these fires,
and which hold some of our best fellow men
and women are little less green?'
Gail Hamilton, in her forthcoming ESSAY.
"What Think ye of Christi" says of the Smith
sisters of Glastonbury: GAIL the world has had
its laugh at them and there is certainly some
thing very droll in the idea of two quiet gentle
women at the head of regiment of JERSEY
COWS making stand against the whole consti.
tuted United States Observation-Disclosures an
droll as 1t was for handful of Boston folk to
throw overheard cargo of tea in the face of
the British Empire hundred years ago. But
1t is not in the least droll, on the other hand it
seems to me altogether admirable, that fifteen
years ago, in the refined seclusiou Of their
country parsonage, for their own interest and
amusement, two sisters, the daughters of an
obscure, cultivated, country clergyman, should
set about the translation of the Old and New
Testaments. 1t is curious coincidence that
De Quincy in his Literary "reminiscences tells
of Miss Smith, daughter of an English colo
mel, who lived in the lake district, was mistress
OF French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, German,
Greek and Hebrew, and made translation Of
the Book of Job was, by biblical critics,
pronounced to be of the first rank.
A Rustchuk correspondent of tho Augsburg
Gazette gives the following brief account of
Ekrem Abdul Kerim Pasha, the Turkish Sir
dar. or commandments: 1.-THE Sirdar ia
Turk of the old school, one of those who ara
seldom met with nowadays. He owes his ca
reer to no Byzantine intrigues, out rather has
the straightforwasdness and probity of his char
acter to thank for it. He spent his youth in
Vienna, under the guidance of an Austrian
officer, Herr Won Hanslab, and there learned.
not only the rudiments of military science. but
knowledge of the German language and Ger
man manners, and took away with him the
stamp of German solidity. In the course of
time he has, indeed, lost his facility in speak.
ing German, but nevertheless he can still ex-
press himself in that id;om, and he is fond of
reading the German newspapers In him are
to be found no traces of the Jesutic and courtly
grimaces which distinguish the Turks brought
up IN Parls and who speak French with more
or less fuency. He must be somewhere about
sixty years of age, for during the CIimean war
it was he who commanded the army operating
about Erzel oum and Kars. He was not fortu.
nate in that command, for his hands were tied
by the diplomatists and the necessary men
were refused him. This time he has nothing of
the kind to fear, it is to be hoped. His bronzed
visage, framed in a white beard that goes all
round it, bids defiance not only to the storms
of time, but to the numerous cares of his re.
sponsible position in an unchanging expression
of calmness and confidence. He is no Hotspur.
no youthful Bonaparte burning with desire
to get at the enemy, falling upon him suddenly
after having worn him out and misled him by
numberless marches and countermarches. He
is rather the immovable player of a waiting
game, Fabius Cunctator, who is able to keep
even Hannibal in check