The Portland daily press., 1892-05-31
NEW YORK LETTER.
Astor's Unjust Treatment Of the
Women in his Family.
Mrs. Astor Must Practice Rigid Economy
The Sons and Daughters of Gen.
Robert E. Lee-A Great Man
from Brooklyn.
TcoPyRrGKT, 1921

Ing cOlDcldenceS have served to attract
special attention to them. Something
of the kind is needed to attract special
attention to any visitor here, short Of
royalty. A black princess from the can
nibal islands or pirate king may com
mand his own welcome at his own
time. The Lees have been people of
social prominence. wealth and refine
ment since the beginning of this coun-
try. The traces of generations of gentle
breeding show as plainly in men and
women as in horses. There could be,
at this period of equine development,
and in this country now more and more
given over to horse worship, no strong
er simile than this. And the Lees
love horses with sufficient enthu-
siasm to be thoroughly in SYM
pathy with the metaphor. The CO.
incidences to which I allude were the
announcement by the court of claims of
decision awarding 1916, 1000 to the
heirs of Robert E. Lee on the very day
when perhaps the most gifted of them,
Miss Mary Custis Lee, was receiving So
cial attentions from number of promi-
mediately following set dinner at the
Manhattan club by the president Of the
Southern society to Grover Cleveland,
at which Ex-Governor Fitzugh Lee, a
nephew of Robert e. Lee, was guest
of honor. Miss Mary Lee is one Of the
most interesting American women of
our time People who were invited to
meet her at the residence of Col. Rich
ard Lathers found stately, gray
haired lady with the manners of a
court and the added charm of personal
magnetism and intellectual culture
There is no educator like travel, and
Miss Lee has been one of the
greatest travellers of her time,
certainly the most distinguished of
her country. know of no other
American lady who has alone, save
for her maid, penetrated into the
renoter regions of Syria, Egypt, CEN
trail and northern Europe and even the
isles of the far east. But Miss Lees
travels and adventures have been more
venturesonle and more fruitful than
this cursory mention could Indicate
Her graces Of person and mind fit her
eninently for writing them and, for all
I know, she may already have the
record in black and white. It ought to
be good reading. The Lees, however,
have all the modesty of their ancestors
They do not shrink from publicity but
withdraw themselves, rather, from ell
bowling the crowd and contributing in
any way to spectacle. There were
five children of the great confederate
leader: George Washington Custis Lee,
William a.. Fitzhugh Lee, Robert Ed
ward Lee, Jr., Mary Custis Lee and Mil
dred Lee. Of these, but three survive
George Washington Custis Lee, who
is the president of the Washing
ton and Lee university, the fa-
nous old Literary Hall school at
Lexington, Va, which was endowed
by George Washington and became
Washington college; Mary G. Lee, who
has just now been visiting here, and
Mildred Lee, cultivated and distin-
guished lady who has, like her sister,
preferred a single life. The sons of the
family have been declared by contempo-
rary critics to be inferior to the daugh-
ters in virility of intellect and force of
character. Assuredly the difficult role
of great mans son has been played with
dignity and modesty, at all events, by
the sons of Robert e. Lee. But they
keep away from crowds and have been
less familiar personages to the eye of
the American public than any other
men Of their standing in the country.
The sons of Grant, of Lincoln, of Nc
Clellan, of almost any prominent Amer
ican you can think of, are recognized at
once in New York crowd. The son of
Sherman is a religious recluse; the son
Of Leeis even more secluded do not
believe he would be known by
sight in any city north of Mason
and hnon's Line. He is retiring
in manner to most marked de-
gree, brown-he@1ed, brown-eyed, dig
nified in manner and refined after the
manner of refinement which only those
who live ''far from the madding
crowd" and yet with all the comforts
and Injuries of city life about them,
seem to possess. Gen. George Washing
ton Custis Lee, for he was general
under his father in the confederate
army, is tall and -proportioned, not
unlike his father in figure. He is not
only president of the Washington and
Lee university, of which his father took
charge after the war, but he is still, I
believe, Or was for some years at least,
active professor in that institution, of
applied mathematics and engineering.
If mistake not, Gen. George Washing
ton GUSTS Lee is, as his father was,
West Point graduate. But it seems
difficult for a New Yorker to realize
that he never has chance to look at
and become, to some extent, acquainted
with any American of such distinction.
Anywhere in Great Britain he
would be 1ionized. The claim re-
ferred to. by the way, was for
the timber cut from the great old estate
of Ravenswood in Fairfax county, Va,
by the federal troops during the war,
and came from Mrs. Anna M. Fitzhugh
by descent to Mrs. Mary Gusts Lee,
Robert q. Lees wife. The court of
claims makes the payment of the $780,
600 to the heirs of Robert e. Lee con-
ditional upon their proving their 10y
altV to the governments of the limited