The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1880-09-17

age than was the fact. He had a calm
expression, penetrating blue eye, and
looked like thinking man. He was
dressed in black, bald on the top of his
head. powdered, of rather protuberant
person in front, small lowef limbs
1meaning spindle shanks) and grave in
speech. Evidently not a beauty man,
but he had capital brains.
OF President Monroe we have two ac-
counts. one representing him as tall and
insignificant. and the other as short and
more insignificant. A life of him by
competent person, could be made more
interesting work than that of any other
President we had in the sixty years that
separate the outgoing of John Adams
from the incoming of Abraham Lincoln.
President John Quincy Adams was
small man. We saw him about the
time he had entered his 10th year, when
many days had told upon him, making
him stoop. President jackson would
have had handsome figure had he not
been so thin and spare; but as we
saw him only when he was rid
ing on horseback and he was
superb horseman--he may have ap-
peared to be better looking than he was.
His face was wan and thin, and his hair,
which was abundant, though he was &c
years old, was milk white. President
Van Buren we saw when he was 81 years
DID, he being then Vice President, and
we thought he would have been hand
some if his flowing locks had not been
long before removed by the malignity of
time Badness makes handsome man
ugly, and an ugly man uglier. Presi-
dent Harrison had the reputation of hay
ing been pood looking in early life, and
portraits of him in his age confirmed the
belief that had come down. President
Tyler really was a good looking man,
| but he was not very far advanced in
years when he entered Office. President
Polk was paltry, and seemed to be feeble.
President Taylor was rugged, but he had
| a good head.
The handsomest of all our Presidents
was unquestionably President Fillmore.
| We saw him at Tonawanda (western New
York; some years before he became
President, and not at first knowing him /;
and we Thought then, as we think now,
| that he was most striking specimen OF
| masculine beauty. The only men we
have seen to be classed with him in looks
| are Mr.. Webster in his forty-ninth year,
| and Mr.. Hawthorne in his fftieth year.
Mr.. Fillmore had the best figure of the
three, but Mr.. Webster had the bet
| ter head, and Mr.. Hawthorne's face was
| that of god-in marble, and it was well
set off by the best of black hair. Presi-
dent Pierce was bland, pleasing man,
but he would not have been noted for
good looks in a crowd. President Bu-
chanan had a large presence, but his face
often had semi-simpering expression
that did not match well with his portly
| Mr., ~ xuoc
consul at Liverpool for much of the
time that Mr.. Buchanan was our min
lister in London, saw something of him,
and wrote of him in his note book, on
the 18th of September. 1855: The tall,
large figure of Mr.. - has a certain
air of state and dignity; he carries his
head in very awkward way, but still
looks like o man of long and high au-
thority, and, with his white hair, is now
quite venerable. There is certainly q
lack of polish. a kind of rusticity, not
withstanding which you feel him to be
man of the world. I should think he
might succeed very tolerably in English
society, being heavy and sensible, cool,
kindly and good humored, with a great
deal of experience of life" He was
bachelor-the only bachelor President
we have had-which, perhaps, was the
reason he took the dissolution of the
Union SO easily. It has been said that he
had love affair in his youth that turned
out unluckily, like many another such
affair.
President Lincoln was of an ungainly
figure, but he had good head and a
most expressive face. He, too, had an
told us that he had never seen or heard
<f ,4v hot
no romance contained anything more
complete of the kind. 81 do believe"
he said, she would have died had not
the landlady relented." So one need
net be beauty man to suffer from the
common fever of lie. General Grant is
plain, short man, but in regarding
him, SO great are his deeds, men are
affected much as poor Desdemona was
when she listened to Othello's tough
yarns, and half ofwhich were probably
lies. Mr.. johnson was a personable
President, and President Hayes is far
from being ill-looking. General Han
cock is said to be handsome, and the
portraits of General Garfield represent
him as a man of fine appearance. Tis
often said that women do not care for
beauty in men as men care for it in
women. 1t may be so-we know nothing
about the matter; but good looks are
passports everywhere, like good man
ners and good propriety. Yet it must
be allowed that very handsome women
frequently do marry very hideous fell
lows; and there is consolation in the
fact, for misery likes consolation as
much as it likes company. To adjust
the balance between the sexes, many
wise men marry very dull women, who
make good wives of the 'homely house
hold SAVIOR" order-women who will wash
well and wear better.
Our RAILWAY SYsTEM.-The New York
Indicator says during the past ten years
che railway system of the United States
has nearly doubled in extent of mileage.
During this period we have had six
years of commercial revulsion and al
most universal bankruptcy. 1t is not
the extraordinary extension of our rail-
way system alone that challenges atten-
tion, but the marked improvements that
have been made in the many older roads,
and especially in the so-called trunk
lines. Wooden bridges have been re-
moved and iron structures substituted in
their stead; iron rails replaced by steel;
the building of freight cars of double the
capacity of the old ones, carrying twenty
tons of live weight instead of ten, as
formerly, and more substantial and
thoroughly ballasted road-beds. These