The Indianapolis journal., 1885-09-13

| that brought out every man S character and Mr..
| Lincoln came out in a light that was then quite
| new to me.
He developed. to my surprise. large knowl-
| edge of English literature and bee-lettres, and
an appreciation of all that is grand and beautiful
| in the English language l never met man
who seemed to me to have such tenacious
memory. He repeated of the plays of
| Shakespeare almost entire, skipping from charac-
| ter to character with a drol twinkle of the eye
| that showed nice perception of the dramatic
situation Browning, too seemed to be one of
| his favorites; and from Byron he recited whole
cantos, one after the other He must have given
us twelve or fifteen pages from The Corsalr
| AT the same time his humor exhibited
| itself in remarkable degree. | remember
that, one morning, we were sitting on the
| upper deck, he picked Up copy of Frank Les
| lies in which was funny poem full of puns.
| One of the verses ended Saying, witt thou! and
| she wilted.' He read it with great effect, then
| sprawled himself on the deck and borrowed my
knife and cut it out and put it in his pocket
book. We heard him read it to strangers several
times during the passage"
| asked General Viele if Mr. Lincoln ever
made any revelations of his own history.
Yes, I'm coming to that" he said 'One day
we found ourselves compelled to listen to a long,
! dry and prosy account of the personal his
tory of the captain of the revenue cutter
In one of his pauses Mr. Lincoln kindly
protected by saying Captain
cuse me; but you remind me of my marine
experience. He then passed in review that bit
OF his Ire winch lea bancroft, III his
euogy Of him, to say that he began his life as
| fatboatman.' This was not strictly true.
| Lincoln never fiatbOatman, except that he
once helped take one fatboat down the Misss-
| sippi This he told us about, and can pretty
| accurately recall his language
when | was young fellow, about eight
! teen, said Mr.. Lincoln, 4 worked for Kentuck
ian, and helped him distill whisky. When
spring came he had nothing to pay off with
except whisky. You weren't around. then,
| Chase. manufacturing backs. | fOunQ
myself the possessor of several barrels or whisky,
and nary dollar in money. Whisky was
so plenty that had serious doubts about realiz-
| ing anything on my stock.
"'In this fix heard of man up the Ohio
river who was building a fiatboat, intending to
! send it to New Orleans the stage of
water would allow; so | went up and saw him,
and arranged for him to take my whisky to New
! Orleans, l going along and working my passage.
| 1t occurred to me, however. that when | got to
| New Orleans whisky might be much of drug
as in Kentucky, so Ltraded half the whisky for
| tobacco. After while we got started. One
| night, when we were suubbed up to the levee,
| couple of gentlemen came down the bank and,
! looking at the little boat we dragged, said.
| Young man, how much will you charge to row
| out to meet that steamer that is coming down
| the river! / told them thought it was worth
| shilling piece. | rowed them out, and when
they got on board the steamer they gave me
bright silver dollar. l felt good When l got
back found mad been gone about two hours,
! ana COncluQeO tnat IL L cOulu MAKE SI every
two working hours, [ might yet be rich man
| before died
Here Mr. Lineolns narrative suddenly
| ceased. We waited till it was obvious that he
| did not mean to continue it, when the Captain
said, Say, Mr.. Lincoln now about that whisky
and tobacco! Did you get rid of them all right?
''Captain,' said the President, with half
! playful seriousness, i was merely narrating
my marine experiences, and told no more"
'One day." continued General Viele "Mr.
| Lincoln picked up Lew that sticking
in socket at the side of the vessel, for in an
emergency, and taking 1t by the extreme end of
the helve with his extended thumb and forefnger,
| be held it at arms length for several minutes,
without any difficulty. He remarked that he
could 90 that trick when he was eighteen, and
had never seen a day since when he could not
| do it. After that say every sailor try to Go
| what they had Mr. Lincoln do, without
being able il single instance. He reminded
me of Peter the Strong who held the offensive
| bugler out the castle window.
"The fund of anecdote and appropriate allu-
sion possessed by MIR. Lincoln was marvellous.
OF course he told good many stories not in
tended for miscellaneous society; and he told
| those stories for the same reason that other
men tell them-not because they are off color
| but because they are exceedingly ludicrouS and
often Apostle
| ] asked the General if he recalled anything
about the other distinguished guests. only
little" he said, "and that little is associated
! with Mr.. Lincoln. The fact is that while Stan
|
| qualities, and Chase in the possession of an
| analytic intellect Mr.. Lincod surpassed them
| immeasurably in interesting everybody who saw
| him. I remember that Stanton made the re-
| mark, MIR. Lincoln, Just before left my Office
! received letter from General Mitchell. in Ala
bama, asking certain things. 1t vague. l
! didn't understand 1t exactly but | took the
| chances and telegraphed back, All right, 60
| ahead Now, if have made a mistake l shall
have to get you to countermand my order
Mitchell won't make any mistake there.
! He's like the horse-you know about the horse!
! He for sale at a cross roads in Kentucky. A
| crowd was gathered to bid. small boy
employed to ride the horse up and down and
show his points. One of the followed the
horse along out rod or two, and then quietly
said TO the boy, Boy hain't that hoss got the
| splintsF
II dunno wot the splints is said the boy,
'but eff they're good for i'm. he's got 'em, and eff
| they hain't he haln't got EN-"
General Veile said he thought Mr.. Lincoln told
| more than a hundred good stories during thai
interesting trip to Fortress Monroe in war
time
STRAIGHT TIPS.
| The talked of mergency between the Western
Union and the Baltimore Ohio Telegraph
Company is very much ''off." The Western
Union people declare that tho Baltimore & Ohio
is losing money every minute (which 1 suppose
is true), and that the railroad which is its name
sake and sponsor has, within three years. Dor
rowed thirty-tw millions of dollars The West
ern U1ion declares that the anaconda plan
didn't pay, and it isn't going to gobbe up any
more telegraphs.
Joseph Pulitzer, of the World, gained four
teen pounds during his short trip to Europe.
Everything seems to have agreed with him, even
| the food on the steamers, and Mrs. Pulitzer was
| equally fortunate short visit was made to
| that part of Austria whence the Pulitzers came.
Mr.. Pulitzer has taken the helm again, and sent
| off for months vacation Col j. A. Cockerill,
who greatly needed rest
have private information from Washington
that Columbia and Costa Rica, disgusted at our
delinquency and dalliance in establishing coaing
stations there, are ready to withdraw the offer
and offer to Germany the same chance. hope
it is not possible that two such harbors as Chirl
! aui Lagoon ard Gofo Dolce. far the best in