The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1890-09-28
BOSTON AND ABOUT THERE.
a BRIGHT ACCOUNT OF THE ADvEN-
TUREs OF THE LADY JOURNALISTS.
What They Saw and What They Thought
About the Sights-The ChronicIer Drops
Frequently in Appropriate Poetry
Relics of Old Colonial Days.

Relics OIL Olu COlOntal Days.
At a recent meeting of the Woman's National
Press Association Mrs. Lucy A. Leggett read
clever and humorous account of the pilgrimage
which the lady journalists made to Boston and
vicinity at the time of the Grand Army en-
campment. The paper was well received, and
is well worth reproduction, so THE HERALD
prints it to-day. 1t will repay perusal.
BY order of this honorable body have been
chosen to represent the secretary, who should
have collated the information and prepared the
report of this grand outing of the Woman's Ma
tional Press Association. The late choice savors
more of a post mortem than pro TEN. secre-
tary, for the eulogy has been pronounced over
what remains with us of pleasant memories so
many times that it leaves very little for your
P NJ. secretary to record which is not worn
quite threadbare by frequent reiteration.
1t was especially ordered that this report
should be the minutes of the trip, not a news
paper letter 1t has puzzled the brain of your
quondam secretary not little how to do the
one and how not to do the other At last she
tried this:
Minute Moved and seconded that we go to
Boston. We go.
Minute 2-Moved by Miss Lockwood, sec
onded by Miss Snow, that we hang our banner
on the inner wall. We hang.
Minute 3-Moved all along the line that we
have good time. We have
The following resolution was offered at about
O'Clock in the morning, on board the steamer
Rhode Island, by Mrs. Sperry:
"Whereas, That in the course of human events
man is prone to sympathize with the elements
when both are stirred to their depths, and being
1,-
matter, therefore, Resolved, That we will not be
sea-sick, under any circumstances whatever"
After serious discussion, no quorum being
present, this resolution was laid under the table,
and owing to the continued difficulty of assem-
bling quorum it was decided to let the ssmin-
utes" take care of themselves, and they did their
duty noblyy, growing imperceptibly into hours
and days of exquisite enjoyment.
With the Old Guard tag on our trunks and our
left shoulders, we reached our destination with
out accident or mishap. Some of us who had
read Charles Dudley Warmers "Baddecll' and
were in the secret of the spider-web puzzle
called Boston betooll ourselves at once to Scolly
Square, the hub of that great wheel, from which
radiate the narrow, crooked lines which form the
thoroughfares that echoed to hundred thou
sand strange footsteps in that memorable week
Having adjusted our bearings, we were prepared
for anything, and did not get into the wrong car
take the opposite direction from that in which
we expected togo or bring up at the point from
whence we started, oftener than an average Of
five or six times day, which was very good
record for Washingtonians, who walk their
streets by the alphabet and the multiplication
table. Some large-brained individual took in
the difficulties of the occasion and dropped into
poetry, thus:
A youth he would to Boston CO.
ana didn't know the streets were bent.
This is the way he tried to go -,
is the way he went -
Boston is justly proud of her historic associa-
tions for with her and her surroundings is the
beginning of American history, and one of her
itself to our judgment. Every point of historic
interest was pacarded, thus: "The Old South
Church." 'king's Chapel" "Site of the Gus
tom-house, 1883" Washington lodged here in
17S9," "Governor Winthrop's house." "John
Quincy Adams's house." "fIere lived Marquis
de Lafayette" This was the home of Cotton
Mather,n and the old sign, benjamin Frank
lin, Candlemaker." GLOW far that little candle
throws its beams" yet "Daniel Webster's law
Office" What host of memories that little
placard called up of craftsmanship and political
acumen such as we look in vain to find in this
later day
Boston.is scarcely less proud of her cemeteries;
and the old German Burying Ground, or Park
street Churchyard, in the very centre of that
busy city, was thrown open for the first time in
thirty years, that strangers might go in and out
at their pleasure, and read the quaint inscrip-
tions on the gray and crumbling headstones,
The grave of John Hancock was guarded by a
policeman, to protect what remained of the
little broken piece of granite, which bears that
honored name, from further depredations. The
grave of Paul Revere, the hero of that ride SO
graphically described by Longfellow, has a com
parativey modern stone erected by his ad-
mirers Of later day We knet by the grave
of "Mother Goose" and poked away the long
grass to read this inscription:
MARY GOOSE,
Ye Wife to
ISAAC GOOSE,
Aged AZ. Died 1890.
Her name will live as long as cradle songs are
sung. We have to thank her for many cob
webs swept out of our childhood's sky, and some
how we had thought her very old, but she was
only forty-two.
One of the curious inscriptions reads thus:
Here lyeth entomed Mrs Hannah Allen, wife
of Mr. James Allen.
stay, thou this tomb that passeth by,
And think how soon thou too must die;
II sex or age or virtues bright
Would have prolonged, those ii might;
ct turned 1t was to be their way,
ANA II with them thou wouldst be blest
Prepare to go before thou rest"
Another crumbling stone had q marble heart
sunk into its surface with this inscriptions
Mr.. John Norton, repaired by James Brown"
The victims OF the Boston massacre were kept
In their allotted space by an iron fence. Many
OF the old tombs formed q part of the back
walls of business buildings which hem In this
old treasure ground of the past on three sides
The Office OF the WOnldn'S Journal Is one of
these buildings, and the headquarters rendered
by the New England Press Association to the
Washington Press Association overlooked this
old place.
On grand parade day vour renresentstives