The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1877-10-05

4
having been purchased by the human
earthquake at the auction sale after TIN
close of the exhibition, and by him remov
ed to Ridge Hill Farms for the amusemen
and mental improvement of his family ant
| friends.
Close to tie stable is small chapel will
this inscription over the door: "Creed =
Liberty of Conscience, Faith, Hope ant
Charity" The interior is decorated witt
notices of an instructive and moral char
acter, prominent among which is passage
OF poetry that Mr.. Baker especially adj
| mires:
| 10 noble things, not dream them all day long,
| And so make life, death and that vast forever
One grand, sweet song.
AS if to symbolic the comprehensive
scope of the Ridge Hill Farm theology
| the presiding deity of the chapel is big
bronze Buddha, cross legged and ugly AT
one corner of the sacred edifice is half
buried piece of ordnance with a tin sign
bearing one of Mr.. Bakers most novel and
striking puns, Zone of the Canons of the
churcng '
A year ago to-day this eccentric gentle.
man gave a banquet to Massachusetts cler-
gymen of all the different denominations,
and as he took them aside one by one and
explained the point of the cannon joke,
there was much chuckling beneath white
neckties.
In one of the acknowledgement es-
says already mentioned, Mr.. Baker informs
the public that on "many, many, MANY con-
secutive nights, continued far into the
morning." he has wandered over his 800
acres, lighting his way with matches and
candles, "building castles in the air, re-
moving obstacles to progress, projecting
ornamental waterworks, fountains, artifi-
cial ponds and lakes, and planning won
ders underground"
The results ofthese midnight conceptions
are everywhere apparent. Some of them
are grand and poetic, some fanciful, and
even playful. To be classed with the for
mer is the Union Monument, not yet COM
pleted, but designed to symbolic the re-
Cancellation OF the two sections. This con-
sists of a marquee, occupying prominent
site on the top Of a hill. The roof will
bristle with 1000 bayonets used in the
Federal and Confederate armies during the
late npleasantness, and over the bayonets
will be perched stuffed white dove, hold
ing an olive branch in its bill.
edifces, the interior of the marquee is
adorned with an allegorical pain ing of
grand size and fine significance. The pic
ture represents the nuptial ceremony be-
tween uniformed boy in blue and the
daughter of Confederate officer, the
"best man" being soldier in gray and the
leading bridesmaid the daughter of Mas
sachusetts General.
Suspended in shadowy form over the
principals in this interesting group are the
ghosts of Robert E. Lee and of Ulysses S.
Grant (the artist taking the liberty to an
ticipatc the latter's demise for the sake of
artistic unity,) their faces smiling approval
and blessings upon the happy couple
Over against this painting is to hang anoth-
er, representing black SOW standing on
the steps of the State House and surround
ed by the Governors of Massachusetts, from
1880 to the beginning of the present cen
fury.
From Mr.. Bakers point of view, the
highest compliment that can be paid de-
parted statesman is to introduce him in
picture in connection with hog. The
pig is the sacred animal at the Ridge Hill
Farms. Mr.. Baker believes that porcine
intelligence ranks second only to the hu-
man. His favorites for domestic pets are
clean little white porkers. There are num-
berless hogs and pigs on the estate. Liv-
ing they are maintained in luxurious style,
and dying, buried with all the pomp and
glory that wealth can command. The
chief piggery of the establishment is pal,
atial affair. 1t was dedicated with i'm
pressive ceremonies two years ago, in the
presence of three thousand guests, and at
an expense of many thousand dollars
Like the stable its exterior walls are COW
cred with large oil paintings, in this case
illustrating various phases of porcine life.
For the accommodation of its occupants,
the interior is fitted up deliberately, the
pens being of polished hard wood hand.
somely carved, and cared for by numerous
attendants. Here and there on the grounds
may be seen the mausoleums of departed
hogs of extraordinary size and merit, their
stuffed skins erected on costly pedestals,
and thus forming their own monuments.
Mr.. Baker has eXcavated an artificial
lake, and placed upon it queer steamboat,
which travels with equal facility uponwater
or land. He has tunnelled the lodges for
fully quarter of mile, forming a subter-
ranean labyrinth that ends in bear pit
The entrance of the grotto is freestone
arch that once formed the portal of Pres
byterian church, partially destroyed in tho
second great Boston fire of 1878. The sa-
cred stones are guarded by two wooden
figures, formerly in the employ of some to-
bacconist.
Wandering along the shores of the lake,
the visitor encounters stuffed mules set up
among the shrubbery; monument thirty
feet high, made entirely of empty cham
payne bottles, and itself constituting a gil
gantic bottle; grotesque wooden effigies
of men and animals; stuffed alligators, as
if crawling up from the water cottage
shingled with old spades and shovels;
cemetery containing all that was mortal of
deceased pets, bears, swans, monkeys, dogs,
ducks, fawns, cats, cows, canary birds, and
pigs-each having been accorded funeral
honors in the presence of large gatherings
of distinguished guests, and each solemnly
laid away beneath a tombstone bearing an
epitaph composed by Mr.. Bakers own
brain. Here and there tin signs are sus-
pended on trees or tackled against lodges
for no other apparent purpose than to con-
vey some of the choicest puns of the eccen-
trio proprietor. There are log houses built
of thousand worn out railroad sleepers
piles of burnt out locomotive smoke stacks;
monument of defaced stone columns
from the Boston Post office, injured in the
fire a boat house pictorially adorned out
side; dolls play houses, crockery mon
strosities, rusty cannon, wooden snakes in
the grass, and thousands of other objects
appropriate to museums or junk shops but
not usually found as features oflandscape
gardening. Whenever Mr.. Baker comes
across anything extravaganza, odd or non
descript, from a three-legged bear to a
queer-shapped clam shell, he forthwith
purchases it at the owners price, and adds
it to the bizarre attractions of Ridge Hill
Farms.