The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1877-01-20
ONE OF GRATIS INTIMATES.
Character and Antecedents of the Hon. Ned
BeaI, Minister to Austria.

Washington Correspondence OF the Cincinnati Enquirer.
A gentleman somewhat intimate at the ex.
ecutive mansion, told me not long since that
in sending Ned Beal to Austria the president
lost one Of his safest advisers as well as the
society of one of his most intimate associates.
did not wonder at this. Beat is coarse,
horsey sort of a man from California, con.
nected by marriage with Admiral Porlers
family. lie is said TO be man OF great wealth,
and bought some years since the Decatur
mansion, barry old historic house that he
disfgured with some sham Cornices. HIS
house, thus renovated, has been a social cen
ire, for Mrs. Beal is a lady OF refinement, and
the two daughters are pretty enough to be at
tractive, with sufficient dash to make them
selves bellies. The parternal Ned looks ana
affects the rulan. That is, the California ar.
ticle, that covers a Kind heart with the form
and ways of the grizzly bear.
Neds history, as told about Washington,
is rather interesting, from It's romance. He
was on the Pacific coast as MILDLY when the
war with Mexico gave us California. Tecum.
sch Sherman sent him across the continent as
bearer of dispatches. The trip at that time
was enough venturOus without calling on the
imagination, of which article h. has good
supply. Fremont had made the work popu-
lar, and his narratives read like rOmances.
Ned's achievements Won for him the favor of
Senator Benton, and under the encouraging
support of that statesman the MILDLY left the
service to be appointed Indian agent As
such agent he got up reservation called the
Home reservation, upon which tribe OF In.
dians, now all gone to the happy hunting
grounds, were induced TO turn their untutored
minds to farming La this healthy pursuit
the pastoral Beal expended between two and
three hundred thousand dollars of the govern
ment money in improvements.
This agricultural business was progressing
IN healthy manner when the agent was APP
pointed surveyOr-general. Not wishing TO
abandon his Interesting and phllanthropic
pursuit of civiizing the bucolIc Indians, Ned
surveyed all the lands of the reservation, in.
Guiding the government Improvements, enter.
ed the same IN the name of his wife, and then
served notice on Uncle Samuel to get out OF
that, and take the pastoral red men along
with HIM.
That such transaction, all Of which gath.
er from the California press, and which has
not up TO this time been contradicted, should
be a success, only illustrates the rude condi-
ton Of life on the Pacific slope a, that day.
That a cate of the United States that had re-
jected Dana for the Mission to England, on a
suspicion of a literary plagiarism, should con-
firm Beal, only proves that this august body
of solons, in the absence of ideas, realizes their
value, while real estate is regarded as the
trash spoken of by Shakespeare;
lie who steals pin commits a sin.
But he who steals u ranch goes minister TO Austria
topper.
1t is said OF President Lincoln that when
pressed by Ned to give a reason for his Ned s.
removal from the lace of surveyor, the mer.
ny executive replied:
because, Edward, you proved yourself too
much like Alexander Seikirk-yOu were mon
arch of all you surveyed"