Charlotte home and Democrat., 1882-03-10
Correspondence of the Home and Democrat
New YORK, March 6, 1882.

NEW Okhs u1diOA ", AoO%'
Editor Home and Democrat The
death of that venerable and excellent lady,
Mrs. Mary J. Lucas, of your city, carries
me back the long period of seventy years,
when first saw her in Raleigh, the wife
of one of the ablest and most accom-
plished Editors the State has ever known,
Alexander FL. Lucas, and the daughter of
Mr. Casso, proprietor of the principal hotel
of that period, which stood on the South
ern front of the capitol, where Mr.. Nor
decai and DIR. Hogg afterwards put up the
building SO long known as the "North
Carolina Bookstore" She was a good
woman, who spent the long period of her
widowhood, more than fifty years be-
lieve, in acts of kindness to her troops of
friends, many of whom preceded her to
the grave.
Another face rises before me as | write,
as it has often done heretofore-that of
Miss Mildred Cameron, daughter of the
late Judge Duncan Cameron. When l
saw her in this city a few years ago, she
had been an invalid for about thirty-fve
years, yet do not remember ever to have
looked upon a more cheerful and con-
tented face. 1t might we'll have been
called angelic. She was an example of
daily and hourly physical suffering that
did not mar the serenity of christians
spirit, and which might serve to tighten
the burdens of others lives, as think the
remembrance of it has lightened mine.
At meeting of the Medico-Legal So
ciety, in this city, DR.. Hammond and
others spoke on emotional insanity, and
at the close, Mr.. Scoville, Guiteau's
brother-in-law and counsel, made a few
remarks, in the course of which he said,
"My investigation of this subject has led
me to this conclusion, that the Courts,
with some degree of humanity, will find
some mode of modifying the law SO that
while they hold to the spirit of the law
they do not hold to the letter of the law"
1t is to be feared that Mr.. Scoville is right,
except that instead of saying that the
Courts aoiW find, he might have said haze
found some mode of modifying the law.
In other words, that the Courts sometimes
dare to make the laws conform to their
own opinions of what the laws should be,
instead of administering the laws as the
Legislatures make them. An eminent
legal gentleman once told me, with great
lpoi rs Of iof
Marshall, than whom there has never been
higher authority, on this point Judge
Potter had said, in delivering an opinion
at Raleigh, that in cases like that before
them, "the Court leans to the side of 80
and so. Gin that opinion" said Chief
Justice Marshall, 81 do not concur. This
Court has no leanin0s, but endeavors to
administer the law as it finds it upon the
statute books"
There is a rather amusing article in the
Philadelphia American on the subject OF
prolonged visits-"Staying in Friends
Houses" In England, gentlemen in the
country have their regular SUGGESTIONS OF
visitors, whose terms of stay are pre-
scribed-these for week, those for a
fortnight, &c. And the host and hostess
find out every morning what each guest
would like to do, or where to go; put
each in the way of doing or going accord
ingly, and then give themselves no fur.
ther trouble about the guests till the
evening, when they all assemble for lunch
or dinner. Whereas in this country, peo
pie give one grand entertainment to per-
sons who bring letters of introduction
and then turn them adrift. Always ex
cept in Boston, where, according to Mr.
Lathrop, hospitality is understood to be
chiefly restricted to the offer of seat in
church"-and Unitarian church at that
[ suppose. The American next gives ex
amples of fussy hosts, who run after theil
guests, to their great annoy ance; and ot
equally fussy guests who are not satisfied
without monopolizing all the time which
their hosts should devote to their own
daily duties. And finally comes to the
question, GLOW long will they stay p
Anu some OF JnC various devices are re-
cited to get rid of visitors who outstay
their welcome. None of these are equa
to that of Gerritt Smith, of the western
part of New York, whose house was oper
to all corners, but who got rid of one afte,
as long an endurance as he could stand
by urging petition at family prayers
"for the safe arrival at home of our friend
Mr.. -, aoho leaves as tomorrow morn,
ing" And Mr.. - left accordingly.
A plucky woman in the upper part o
the city has rather iorcib:e notion oi
woman's rights. Having failed to pay
her rent, her landlord ordered her to va
cate, when she set to work to damage the
property, and when a painter was sent tc
do some decorations, she drove him out
and threw his paint out of the window
An officer was then procured, but she at
tackled him with a hot poker, and not
until he had procured reinforcements did
the woman consent to go to the station
She was sant IN Htha Island - to ha lodood