The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-07-05
RFWAREOF THELETTERB
.,,zyRAND's CURIOUS THEORY
ABOUT MEMS NAMES.

A-,er,can History Which Lend Color
- the Idea - Only One in the
Whit, House-Gen. Grant Ruined by
Men whose Names Began with This
Letter.
From the Net0 York World.
The great Talleyrand, diplomatist, prince
- bishop. had Il curious theory that men
-bosa surnames began with B were, as a
.,is defective in their mental, moral or
-bvsical makeup" Long association with
.ba House of Bourbon, or, it may be, long
observation Of the Bonaparte family and
+ba families connected by marriage with
the victor of Austerlitz and the vanquished
i If Waterloo, suggested, in all probability,
tba IDEA to the most crafty statesman of
al the centuries To him the en-
,,eror was the biggest and the most
,rickad of all the BIS, with the ex-
.antion of the Prince of Darkness himself,
Rselzebub. Among the B families con-
nected with Bonaparte we're Bernadotte,
SON of a Door lawyer, who became marshal
If the empire, brother-i n-law of Joseph
Ronaparte's wife, and finally King of
Sweden. There was another in the per
Il son of Prince Eugene de Beauharnais, son
If Josepbiue He became Duke of Leuch-
tsnbarg. and through his children allied
himself with two or three different royal
q families. No wonder Talayrand attached
& a sinister influence TO the second letter of
The alphabet, when he saw Caroline Bona
q rafte hecome Queen of Naples: Jerome
6 marrying, and then dlscardlng, the beauti-
ful Miss Patterson; contracting a second
alliance with the daughter of king, and
finally becoming a poor sort of king him
a self. But they were not all.
E To complete the list there must be- added
Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples and of
Spain. and Pauline Bonaparte, renowned
& for her beauty, which is preserved in the
4 Venus OF Canova. Napoleon himself had
4 excellent reason to fear the BIS. Without
a Butcher, Wellington might have won
Z Waterloo: and. in all Europe, Napoleon had
Y no more unrelenting fee than the Duke of
II Brunswick. Another B-Lord Henry Bath
E ursc-cruelly selected st. Helena as his
81 prison and his grave. A New York citizen
81 Of French descent, following up this theory
q OF the Bishop of Autun with an industry
\ that would have delighted the prime minis-
a Ter of Louis XVIII, has compiled a good
sized directory of his volcanic countrymen,
u which he calls THE B Blacklist" One of
Il the latest additions to it is Boulanger, and
IN ne names Ol ATHlduQ DdEUeS anu MARSHAL
y Bazaine have, of course, been inscribed in
4 It for years. In the name of Bismarck he
sees another great big link in the long chain
OF the banned BIS.
THE AMERICAN BIS.
u An application of Talleyrand's theory to
the public men of America, past and pres
ent, gives some curious results and coinci-
dences. As Bonaparte was the great. big
and wicked B of France, so was our own
E Burr-brilliant, bold, audacious and ambi,
Ntous-his counterpart on this side of the
q Atlantic. Like Napoleon, he had his
dreams of empire, planning the erection of
a throne iii the halls of the Montezumas,
(which vas scattered in a night by the heavy
#hand of Jefferson, the energy of Tifln of
#Ohio and the promDtitude of Gen. Wilkin-
s son IN New Orleans. His end was almost
las sad rs that of Bonaparte The one was
b prisoner on a desolate rock in South At
lantc when death came to him, and the
#otler saw the last of earth in an old house
4 ION Staten Island, poverty stricken and os-
#tracSsd by nearly all who had known him.
II associated with Burr in his reasonable en-
sTerprise was another B-Blennerhasset
whom ne duped and destroyed. Bollman,
"a protege of Lafayette, was one of Burr's
#prncipal lieutenants, and, after his arrest,
Jan informer against him.
Among the twenty-three Presidents of the
nited States there has been only one B
EJames Buchanan-and there have been only
1.-TWO Vice Presidents whose names begin
with B-Aaron Burr. with jefferson, and
3John Z. Breckenridge, with Buchanan.
he political friends and opponents of the
Eighteenth President and Vice President
will, of course, condemn or approve Taley-
u And's theory in the case of these gentlemen
3 SO far as it is in accord, or the reverse,
ty,.5,. i
Il y our presidential history, the only other
Il Candidates for President and Vice Presi
dht were William .. Butler for the second
Il Plce in lS49, John Bell and John C.
BAckinridge for the first in 1861:
Frpk Blair, Jr., for Vice President
IN 1869; B. Gratz Brown for Vice
4 Pr4ident in 1878 (he also received
elgteen votes for President, Greeley having
Died; Thomas E. Brainlette and N. P.
bants the same year for Vice President.
any in 1855 James G. Blaine. They were
all defeated Frank Blair, it will be rec
oH9ted, ruined Seymour and himself by
MS celebrated letter to Broadhead (B agaipl.
ana James q. Blsine's white plume, with
whltb Col. Ingersol had decorated him in
me thlcago convention, trailed ia the dust
utter ais memorable encounter with the re-
noWnd Burchard in the Fifth Avenue
hotel; There is a bunch of unlucky BIS
winch would have made Prince Talleyrand
rub hls hands with ghoulish glee! The
moral o. this fatality for the politicians.
VINO are almost as superstitious as actors
ana gamblers, is that in the next presi-
Dental race they should Scratch all the
candidates tho have the ilI-omened letter
III the frontof their names.
BIS A,oUND THE WHITE HOUSE.
Many Of the Presidents have had hard
tfne with the BIS. Mr.. Burgoyne, as we
S9lled hlmon one occasion, bothered Gen.
" dShlngtn until the general finally bagged
Inn Inn. tie had cousins in Virginia named
naSSet, ore of whom became the wife of
sne harrson who pestered him for an
4 T1 ht was not competent to fill.
W hen Washington was buying ground for
'ne capital he found old "Davyn Burns.
VINO owed nearly all the present site Of the
Ivy OF w aSnlngton, the toughest customer
"lCn Whom ne ever drove bargain. "You
@ouidbe beggar all your life if | had not
lt4ea the capital here" said Washington.
les petorted Burns, land you would have
oeon poor Virginia surveyor instead of
Senef4 and President if you had not
rarIlfd the Widow. Gusts and her fat
4 i4Rg4s' Andrew jackson found IL easier
=. c6iquer the Seminoles, the Creeks and
W BRUSH under Packenham than to over
pqhe Nicholas Biddle and his rich and
i"errqi bank. "Oid Hickory had as mis-
aiy ana henchman Editor Francis P. Blair.
w was one OF the FIRST newspaper men to
~ NO fortune out of partisan Journalism.
come down to Lincoln, the world will
~ o. q, forget that he was killed by one of
VI DIS, as another ruler was killed many
oeIturles ago by another B. In other