Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1879-11-14
NEW YORK LETTER.
MORLEY SPENDS AN EVENING WITH JOHN B.

COUGH.
1t was my good fortune to be present at
notable gathering the other night. 1t
was parlor reception to John B. Cough.
on his return from q lecturiug campaign
in Great Britain, which has eclipsed every
former brilliant triumph of his wonderful
career
There was the slight, nervous figure and
diminutive head and face of the merchant
prince, William E. Dodge, whose twink
ling eyes dance one moment with merri-
ment, and are suffused the next with
melting tenderness we are accustomed to
look for only in a woman. Beyond him
stood the solid figure and striking face of
the Judge, whose sentence hurled Tweed
from place and power, and consigned him
to prison cell, Chief Justice Noah Davis.
Without fear and without reprOach he
treads the oft-polluted halls of Justice
with a spotless ermine, and carries on his
face the soft cross-lines OF a gentleness so
singular that you feel a strange fascina-
tion in his presence. He says that Cough
has done more to prevent crime than any
man living. and that he knows no higher
possible need of praise to award 70 man
than that. There, too, was DR.. Taylor,
successor to DR.. Thompson as pastor Of
that old Bulwark of Freedom, the Broad
Way Tabernacle. Impartial critics gener-
ally pronounce DR.. Taylor the best preach
er in New York, notwithstanding his hab-
Of IL h.n n. md IN
20 his capacious pockets and drawing
through his nose. One of the few people
who do not admire him, once said to me:
''Why, I'd be willing to drawl like that
for $4,000 yearT'
Then there was Dr. Newman, late of the
Metropolitan Church at Washington;
friend of General Grant, ex-inspectOr of
Asiatic consulates, with strong failing
for ''Hima-alyan SHOWS, }" and ''The Cos
mos" pOrtly, kindly, scholarly, with a
real title to greatness which the general
world would more gladly recognize if the
Doctor could only seem less conscious of
its validity. There, too, was he of the pro-
life pen and rafting, ringing OratOry, DR..
TheO. L. Cuyler, who carries in his face
and department no sign of the wonderful
capacity lodged in his brain, or the bolster
Gus humOr that keeps him, old man that
he is, acting like a mischievous, fun-lOv-
ing boy. He calls Mr.. and Mrs. Cough,
''Brother John and sister Nary" for he
has known and loved them tenderly ever
since an awkward young man in country
clothes began stirring with his elOquence
the people of the Foundry Chapelin Wash
ingtOn over thirty years ago.
Dr. Ormiston was there toO-with that
head of hair. Did you ever see that hair?
No? Well then do you never visit this
wicked city and go away again without
hearing one of the Doctors good old-fash
loned, solid sermOns-aDd seeing that hairl
Imagine Kafir, BushmaD, South Sea
Islander and a Jsck-in-a-Box combined
as to hair; then scalp the front half of
him in a straight line across from ear to
ear and polish the bare part with sapolia,
then comb all the hair on the posterior
half of the head out eight inches at
right angle with the skull line without a
single hair reclining against its neighbor,
and without pretense of part or any
sort Of highway through the wilderness,
and you have only then begun to get
faint glimmering idea Of the museum this
sanity old man carries about within his
hat.
Good old DR.. Burchard was there, who
after forty years of pastorate, surprised
his people with a resignation, which no
body had asked for, simply because he
wanted to drop out before people had
wearied Of him, and getting a surprise
himself in purse Of some $4,000 as a
love offering from his church. But
must talk about Cough, if am going to.
The awkward young man in country
clothes has left wonderful imprint on
ha in r-hf oh ha 10 hoc ID
dressed more people than any man who ever
lived except Whitfield, and probably more |
than even him. Lecture bureaus unani- |
mously declare. that he draws better houses |
and pays better than anv other lecturer,
and he has Travelled and lectured till to- !
tai of his travels represent Journey three |
times the circumference of the earth. For |
fifteen months he has been labOring in |
England. Just before his departure was |
present at Temperance meeting in Cooper |
Institute, when Cough made his appear
snee at back door quietly and tried to |
reach back seat unobserved. Some one |
recognized him and called out that Cough |
was present" when the entire audience |
turned around and demanded that he take |
the platform. He reluctantly came for |
mard and made twenty minute speech, /
more powerful and tremendous than any /
bit of oratory l ever heard from pulpit, bar /
or platform. His magnificent elOquence /
burst over that vast audience like SWELL
ing tornado, and swayed and swept and |
overwhelmed his hearers till every ordinary
of enthusiasm seemed inadequate
to convey their feelings, and his auditors
abandoned themselves wholly to his magic
influence, and were swept along helpless
upon its tremendous and resistless tor
rent.
Cough is an old man now, and while he
prmiseS to live many years, yet ten years
more will probably see his hOnored name
stricken from lecture-bureau lists, and the
English boy will have struck
his last blow at Intemperance and made
his last public appeal to the citizens of his
adopted country. He went to Europe for
rest, expecting to deliver but thirty lectues,
but before reaching the dock at Liverpool
be was besieged with committees from every
part of the kidgdom all; uttering the same
cry, 'Come up and help us" The condition
Of affairs was so string that, defering his
rest he plunged into the work as never be-
fore in his life, and delivered over one hun
1red and fifty lectures. He told US of nine
Lord Bishops lately eSpousing the cause of
total abstinence, of Spurgeon at last adding
his vast influence to teetOtalism, of the
Lord Chancellor himself presiding at one
Of his meetings, of the mighty work among
the lowly in London on the model of and
copied from Jerry McAuley's Water Street
Mission, and of many other things which
gill us with renewed hope for the suffering
middle and lower classes of our English
cousins. 1t was a memorable night, a no.
table company and Cause so worthy of