The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-03-07
STEPHENS SINGULARITIES
A Few Illustrations of Some of the
Dead Statesman's Peculiarities.
The Poverty of His BOyhood-His Rare
Powers of AnecdOte-COntinued Ill
Notwithstanding an Orator.

sounds of delicious music, and have the
odors of sweet flowers waited over his death
bed, and Chopin, when gasping for breath,
begged that they send for a certain gifted
pianist, and play for him one OF his favorite
airs. Alexander H Stephens, who. after a
life Graded in suffering and bounded
through its course of seventy-one years by
horrible physical tortures, passed away mid
night Saturday, wished Ito die in the har-
ness" He did. Elected last year to the posi-
ton of Governor he literally died in the
traces. His career has been one of the most
remarkable of any man of the century and
will ever be living monument of the tri-
umph of mind over matter, of brain over
physical force. His career has been an inter-
esting and distinguished one. Perhaps no
public man in the country ever sur
mounted greater difficulties, and in
the end was crowned with such ltimate
success. His family were of English origin,
respectable, but not OF, high social position.
He worked as a boy on the plantation
and had meager schooling His parents left
him penniless lad, and charity opened the
way for him into the university, but when
ne he taught SCHOOL uHbIl ne
earned enough to repay the money he had
borrowed. Many great men have arrived at
eminence from poverty, but few have had dis
ease added. He was a sickly boy, morbidly
sensitive, and CT melancholy disposition,
and has all through life been racked with
most painful diseases. He was admitted to
the bar when only TWENTY-FIVE. and weighing
eighty-tive pounds, and offered partnership
of 81, 500 year, but his love for home an
chored him to the spot of his bovhood, He
lived on Sc Il month, made his own fires,
blacked his own boots and made $400 the first
year. He joined the Presbyterian church in
those days, as he had found friend, who
loaned him the money by which he went
through college, in Charles G. Mills, his Sab
bath-school teacher.
The second year of his practice he owned a
horse, which he groomed himself.
When he first started in the practice Of
law at Crawfordville he passed every morn
ing shoe factory, and as he was hurriedly
walking by, one of three negroes, who
We're drinking from q tin pail their morn
ing coffee, suddenly suspended operations
and one asked:
who is that little fellow that walks by
here SO fast of mornings
why man, that's lawyer"
The third negro shouted aloud with genu-
inc negro guffaw. "a lawyer! lawyer, you
say. Yah, yah; that's too good" In less
than six months Stephens saved that negro,
who had mirrored popular opinion of the
struggling boy, from the pententiary by
picking a flaw in the Indictment. But these
were days of his early wrestles with poverty,
for he was very poor.
There were no railroads in those days, in
Georgia, and on one occasion, when the
court was held in Washington Ga, he
wanted to attend there in a style BETTING
his profession. Too proud to borrow horse
from friend, he walked ten miles to his
&c -Ioo mi, No
change of clothing upon his shoulder, and
asked the loan of horse. His change OF
clothing consisted in part of a pair of thin
white cotton pants of cheap material, and
Just before he entered the town he halted
his horse under a big oak tree, and chang
ing his unmentonables, he entered town in
style.
DIR. Samuel Johnson, who used to lay in
bed until his washerwoman washed and
ironed his only shirt, was not put to much
greater shifts
He was barely started in life before he was
Frustrated by sickness. In 1887 he was con-
fined to his bed for months, and when moved
carried from room to room like child.
When convalescent he took horseback "trip
through the mountains of Georgia In the
following year he was again laid low by ill
ness, and advised to take sea voyage. lie
went by water to Boston, and entered Boston
: harbor passing by Fort Warren May %,
1888 Exactly twenty-seven years after to a
day he stopped at Fort Warren as prisoner
of war, May 25, 1865 Such is one of the re-
markable condolences of his lifetime. For
several years he was member of the lower
aud afterward upper house of the Georgia
Legislature. Here he won a fame that ex-
tended all over the STATE a logical and
shrewd debater and orator of great power.
ANECDOTES.
Many anecdotes are extant of the mistakes
made in regard to him. His head was so
small, his body so emacated that few, at
first sight, could believe him to be the great
Stephens. Once, while vce-president of the
Confederacy, on his way to Richmond he
was taken at Danville by a presumptuous
official for some country boy. He produced
his certificate of identity, signed by his
county clerk but the pompons official de-
clared that "it was too thin," and would un-
doubtedly have conscripted him. but for the
fact that he looked too weak to pack a
musket On another occasion he saved a
drunken soldier from being put off the cars
for diSorderly conduct, aud when the fellow
had sobered up enough to regain some of his
senses. he asked the name of his benefactor,
and on being told that it was Vice-president
Stephens, simply sighed, and said, such is
fame" On another occasion he was invited
to a commercial convention at Charleston,
D. u, Wnefe he was expected TO make the
great speech of the occasion. Arriving
quietly at hotel kept by lady, he
threw himself on lounge to obtain
rest. The busting housewife was keeping
everything in apple-nie order for the benefit
OF her distinguished guest. and wishing to
start up the country youth, as she supposed
he was in as mild manner as possible
when two portlv country merchants arrived
she said: Wake MP my son, and let these
gentlemen have this seat"
Despite his withered, pinched-up form,
puny body holding big soul, he was one of
the greatest anecdotists and one of the most
Interesting conversatonalists of the age Not
old Barton, with his mimicry, or Sam Ward
with his elegance, brought out point so
clearly and inimitably as the crest Georgian
One of his best stories. and which many have