The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1878-10-19
THE PACIFIC
lAObcrtistr
LETTER FROM NEW YORK.
NV YoRk. September 20. 1873.

DEAR COMMERCIAL: l noticed an allusion e
Mrs. Myra Clark Gaines in a letter of youl
Washington correspondent. have just been
looking over several notes from that wonderful
little woman, now in her seventy-third year,
The writing is very fine, clear, and as regular q.
that of a woman Of thirty. Some FIVE years ago
she came TO me about her great case. She took
me By storm, as she has taken men By storm for
forty years. After her first call at nv Office,
with a letter Of introduction, my associate put
his head into my room and said, " You have
had a jolly client" l replied, " Who do you
think It is?' He said, Il don't know, but
from the laugh should think it was some young
girl" l told him it was Mrs. Gaines. She has
wonderful physical endurance, perfect health,
and a most hopeful disposition. This is, in a
large measure, the secret Of her vigorous war for
forty years against the city Of New Orleans.
She has no great brain power, is readily imposed
upon, but rarely has the blues" Under a
load which would crush most of US, she comes
up with a bound. She came to me regarding
some difficulty in a real estate matter. She had
no means of any kind saving the great 'claim."
Her affairs in New Orleans were pressing. She
had children dependent on her for support. She
had her litigation in Washington to follow up.
She would narrate her troubles slowly, almost
sadly. Then suddenly some incidents of the
eternal litigation would occur to her, and she
would break out into a merry school girls laugh.
She was simply +" irrepressibIe." With, prob
ably, a wider range of acquaintance than any
woman on the continent, and an experience of
men and affairs unequalled, she was and is as
simple as a child. l lent her money. So have
scores of people. They cannot help it. will
not here repeat her wonderful story; every
woman should now have it by heart. The Courts
OF the State of Louisiana have always done her
injustice. The Federal Courts have righted her.
Had she been a resident of New Orleans she
would never have secured her rights. A clause
OF the Federal Constitution provides that a citi-
zen OF one State having a claim against a citizen
of another State may sue it in a Federal Court.
Mrs. Gaines was a citizen of Pennsylvania, and
that was her salvation. As fast as the State
Courts decided against her, she had the case
transferred to the Federal Court, and then she
invariably won. In the final hearing of the case
before the Supreme Court of the United States
the Judges, in giving opinions, at times left the
dry style OF legal reasoning, and became eloquent.
There is not in the judicial records of the Anglo
Saxon race a more eloquent tribute paid to
woman than that recorded in this final Judgment.
She employed Webster, Crittenden, and Marcy
distinguished men-and has outlived them all.
excepting Caleb Gushing. She has been forty
years involved IN litigation, and is not through
With 1t. Though often without any means, she
has always interested lawyers, by promising con-
fees; and her bright. hopeful ways have
orought her hosts of friends. On the lands be-
to her under her fathers will, mapv peo-
of moderate means have settled, having paid
lull prices for the premises. To hundreds of
these people she has given deeds in fee simple,
Without exactIng payment. Her fight has been
With the city, and the wealthy corporations, who
nave bitterly fought her. Forty years of dwell
ng on her great grievances, the charge of lille
5itimacy, and the deprivation of her rights, have
developed an irregular growth of her faculties.
1 she had the great estate in her hands to-day it
would not accumulate. Those who have helped
Ter would get some Of it-schemers would take
he balance. Her debts are enormous, and
hough she is now receiving some income. it is
to meet her obligations. She ia
ways 81 on the wing"-now in New York. then
n Washington, and New Orleans. and back
gain to New York.
L often ask myself. What is the lesson to be
earned from the life of this wonderful little
oman? L think it is the supreme value of per-
everance. But she never /. acquired' it. II
Tas born in her. Energy, good health, pluck,
re native qualities. By close cultivation you
lay get some industrious work out of a law
ian, as by careful cultivation you can get a fair
rop out of poor soil. But our best farmers saw.
1t will not pay to bring up a poor soil;" and
ne best merchants say, We don't want to
1ucate boys who haven't got the stuff in them"
merson says, what a man is to be is determined
efore he is born. So 1 think the lesson of Mrs.
aines' life is that blood will tell, and what we
re depends greatly upon what our fathers and
are. Is this dangerous ground? Rev.
oseph Cook, who is certainly orthodox enough.
as been lately talking on that subject, and he
ems to think that human s. stock'' may be
'eatly improved, and that the coming race is to
reached by at least the same care in breeding
we give to Hambletonian horses, JERSEY COWS.
Id Essex pigs. l do not believe that st educa-
on can make any woman do the prodigious
ork that Mrs. Gaines has done. Her father,
aniel Clark, was an Irishman from Sligo, and
r mother a French woman, who gave her birth
nominally married to a Frenchman, who
en- had TWO wives living But Clark was the
Their of this child. The crossing of races may
we had something to do with the remarkable
culties the energy of the French, the humor :
the Irish. .
Another remarkable woman has just returned i
this city. In 1862 l used to be delighted with
e singing of Madame Guerrabella. She was q
e granddaughter of Gideon Lee, an old New 9
'rk merchant and magistrate, and the daughter $
Col. Ward, q merchant. While in Europe in e
81, during her first operate season, she mar d
d Count Guerrabella, a Russian nobleman. \
t left him on the day of her marriage. He o
S a scamp. During her first season here her Il
ice utterly failed her, and she left the stage. c.
T many years she gave muSic lessons s,,,or. "