The Portland daily press., 1879-03-15

"Oiio soioiy o"eS ueDt OF gratitude 10 tnoS
men oil patient research and scholarly judg-
ment, who seek to establish while yet the eyi
dence is attainable the truth of the deeds toll
of our mighty youth and of the great mer
we have so long delighted 10 honor. An in.
stance In point is afforded in a brochur,
lately published by Boston house, "Pau
Revere's Signal Lanterns" For century Il
was believed by everyone that the lantern;
which on the 18th of April, 1775, gave warn
ing of the movements of the British upon th,
military stores at Concord, swung from
the steeple of the North Church (Chris
Church, on Salem street, which now bears
memorial tablet perpetuating the memory O.
Paul Revere's famous ride. For hundred
years this was accepted history, and no mar
ventured to doubt it. But in 1876, during
the celebrations of the centennial year, ingen.
ious persons questioned the story, and argued
with more or less plausibilty, that the sig.
nails were displayed from another of the
North End churches, the ''old North meet
ing-house." Some evidence that looked
strong until examined closely, was brough,
forward in support of this claim. The dis
cussion which ensued excited the attention
of William w. Wheildon, the veteran Jour
nsllst and author, gentleman who is con.
fessedly the best authority in the country on
the history of the early years of the Revolu-
tionary struggle in and about Boston. He
applied himself to the study of the question,
and the result of his labors is the mono
graph "Paul Revere's Signal Lanterns" In
which he settles the question beyond all
doubt. The accepted story of the signals and
the memorable ride is demonstrated by docu.
mentary evidence and oral tradition to be the
true one, and Christ Church will hereafter
rest calmly in the possession of the honors.
which she bore unquesNoned for a hundred
years. Many errors and falsehoods, some
poetical. some very prosaic, are here exposed
and corrected, and the truth of one of the
most notable passages in the Revolutionary
annals eucidated and established beyon d
question.
Let US hope that other students OF our
early history may exercise the same industry
and before the fast-vanishing evidence be
forever gone, put beyond cavl the truth of
the stories and traditions which generations
have trustfully believed in.
The article on the undertaker's new
journal, copied from the Hartford Courant
into the PRESS yesterday, and which bears
the ear-mark of the author of 'My Summer
in Garden" suggests the different way in
which the funereal topic was handled by
a humorist of an earlier day. In one of
Steele's comedies, "The Funeral" perhaps.
"Sable," the undertaken, thus instructs his
people:
Hay you'll A little more upon the dismal
forming their counten0ncesl This fellow
mas good mortal look, place him near the
corpse: that wainscot face must be o. top Of
The stairs that fellows almost in a fright
THAT lc )ks as il he were full of some strange
misery at tie end of the hall. So-But In
hx you all myself. Let's have no laughing
now on any provocation. Look yonderS
that hale, well.ooking puppy! You migrate
ul scoundrel, did not pity you, take you
Dot OF great mans service aud show Won
The pleasure of receiving wages2 Did not l
give you ten, then fifteen and twenty shil-
lngs week to be sorrowfll?-and the more
| give you, l think, the gladder you are!
The undertakers of the eighteenth century
were probably as merry fellows as their sue
cessors in the nineteenth; but they thought
IL unprofess;onal to display their jollity. They
we're as solemn as people at funeral. In
'ne particular, however, they had the ad.
7antage over their followers of to-day. They
we're the first to put the Queen Anne, now
Known as Eastlake, coffin upon the market.
Most of us kno9 of short cuts to wealth.
md if we could take them feel sure we should
DON arrive at riches. Here as elsewhere it
the first step WIN ch costs. Considerable
apital is needed to build the money-making
machine and set it a going. Once started it
Vlll pile up the ingots faster than we can
Weigh them.
1orlcks way to achieve wealth is to estab-
lsn llfe-lnsutsnce company upon an entire-
J new plan-a Company in which only inval-
DIS and weaklings shan be insured. The ro-
'ust man shall be shunned-for he is a de-
eption and snare. You cannot count on
Inn. lie is always sure t. die when death
least expected, He has been the utter ru-
OF many strong companies, and the cause
u embarrassment and impovershment TO
many others. Just when you are counting
N his premium for dividend he drops off
md you have policy to pay. The invalid,
N the other hand, is tolerably certain to live
o good old age. The sickly youth who
promises to die before he is thirty, often lives
o be ninety, and sometimes reaches par-and |
then redeemed, let us hope. Of course
here are exceptions. Once in a while a yig-
'rous young man lives to be old. Occasion
lily an invalid who is very, very good, dies
7oung. But in general the weakling outl;yes
he other.
1t does seem 10 Yorick that a life-insurance
ompany conducted as indicated above would |
make vast sums of money and become rich
beyond the dreams of avarice." The trou-
lie with our life-insurance system, as now
on1ucted, is that it is in the hands of theo-
lists, of a priori reasoners. Its managers OBJ
tnately shut their minds to all the teach
ngs of experience. They work on the as
umption that healthy man ought to live
onger than weakly oae. Perhaps he ought,
ut he doesn't. The facts are against them.
till they go on in the old way, obstinately
linging to tbefr unfortunate theory. Thew
re unabh to see what enterprisipg men in
ther branches of business have long seen.
1ai the invalid, if we'll worked, is a mine of
ealth. Look at the army of doctors he SUM-
'rts. Look at the great drug-shops he has
lit. See the fortunes he has made for tba
Vners OF patent medicines. See the mann
cturers of ''invalid chairs" of s.cbest nro.
ctorS'" of SANITARY garments" whom he
Is enriched. What help he is to the fruit
aae' and to the people who put up iellies /,
a "a otner "deicacies for the SICK" And he !,
tne main.stay of a hundred other trades. .
le only man he does not assist is the under :
er' That worthy loses great sums in in ,
ct while waiting for him, and sometimes /
woartto bankruptcy with large stock. sbon- )
all th9 out of style, on hand. In face Of t
blupdeiicts the actuarioa 90 on in their {
fnsing tiway. insufing the strong and ra .
+ho+ tho weakly. They do not neroo,,-,.