The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1885-07-27

Wocott of Connecticut--the latter
not so distinct as the rest. In the
next column to the left the auto
graphs of William Floyd, Philip
Livingston, Francis Lewis and Lewis
Morris of New York can be made
out with little difficulty, although
the autograph of Morris seems to he
fading very rapidly. OF the New
Jersey members / could make out
the autographs of Richard Stockton,
John Witherspoon and Francis Hop
kinson. tried to trace the sigma
lures of the other two, John Hart |
and Abraham Clark, but l had to
fall back on my imagination. The
only two in the next column, which
comprises the Pennsylvania and
Delaware delegations, decipherable
with the naked eye, seem to be
Robert Morris and Benjamin Rush
of Pennsylvania. looked in vain
for the names of Benjamin Franklin,
John Morton, George Clymer, James
Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson
and George Ross of Pennsylvania,
and Cesar Rodney, George Read
and Thomas Mexican of Delaware.
The name of Samuel Chase of Mary
land can be seen at the head of the
next column. There is just a sug-
gestion of William Paca and the gal
liant Charles Carroll (who added "of
! Carrollton" in order that there might
be no mistake) in two lines of wav-
ing pale ink below Chase's auto
graph, but 1 could not discover the
name of Thomas Stone of Maryland.
l made out nnder these the names of
George Wythe and Richard Henry
Lee of Virginia. / tried to think
that l saw the signature of Thomas
jefferson, which / knew ought to
come next, but if l saw it it was
with the eye of faith. Nor could l
see the autographs of Thomas Mel
son, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee and
Carter Braxton, nor that of big Ben
jamin Harrison, also of Virginia.
ANECDOTES.
1t was the heavy Harrison, Jeffer-
son says, who, when John Hancock
said something about the necessity
of their call hanging together" and
Benjamin Franklin added: eyes,
indeed; we must all hang together,
or assuredly we shall all hang sepa-
rately." 1t was Harrison who
growled at thin, little Elbridge Gerry
of Massachusetts, in his deep bass:
"When it comes to the hanging l
shall have the advantage of you. 1t
will be all over with me long before
you have done kicking in the air.
Harrison's fat signature is now as
ghostly as though it were his own
shade. l could not find the names
of the North Carolina signers, Will
liam Hooper, Joseph Hewes and
John Penn; but underneath the
place where they ought to have been
l found the name of Edward Rut-
ledge of South Carolina, and some
distance below it was that of Arthur
Middleton of the same State. But
in the interspace 1 saw neither of
the names of the other two South
Carolina signers, Thomas Hayward,
Jr., and Thomas Lynch, Jr. Away
up in the upper left-hand corner the
names of the three Georgians stood
out DISQUALIFICATION Gwinnett,
Lyman Hall and George Walton;
but the name of Matthew Thornton
of New Hampshire is neither with
| the other New Hampshire names nor
anywhere else so far as l could see.
l wish the President or Secretary
Bayard would ask Congress to APP
point commission to restore the
missing names on this immortal do
cument. A commission was created
by Congress a few years ago, l
think, for the purpose of restoring
the whole parchment to its original
condition. / don't know what be-
came of it, but evidently it did moth
ing; and, evidently, too, something
ought to be done. i presume that
with proper lenses every letter on
the parchment could be traced now,
but 1t may not be possible to do so
ten years hence. The original draft
in Jefferson's familiar handwriting
is as easy to read as on the day he
penned it. You can trace every
change in the language made by his
colleagues OH the committee. How
very unimportant their interlinea-
tons were! No one has any claim
on Jefferson's fame as mastery