The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1893-02-03

tainly was very distinct and pronounced
personality. Any attempt to compare
him with another would excite smile,
for while he was in turn lawyer, poll
tician, general, military governor, and
again general, congressman, politician,
lawyer, governor, lawyer again and his
torian, he was always and everywhere
Ben Butler
1t is the general rule that legends and
apocryphal stories about very promi-
nent man multiply after his death; but
as to this maxwell, there was Ben
Rutlerian mythology score of years be-
fore his death. This page might be filled
with anecdotes, all of doubtful authen-
ITCHY: how he levied ON mill wheel to
collect a judgment for factory girl, and
thus brought great corporation to terms;
how he cross examined q perjured wit
ness and scared him into confessions;
how he detected dishonest contractors,
put nerve into timid chaplain, got the
inside history of secession cabals and
reused a superstitious terror in old Gre
oles by telling them in their own words
the exact statements they had made in
their last "secret letters" to General
Beauregard.
"Yallow fivver and Zheneral Bootler
at re sem timer screamed an excited old
New Orleanois, to whom Buffers sue
cess in excluding the plague had been
cited. "Dat sacr-r-re fivver and dat sac
TIRE man at re sem time! Sapr-r-r-isti!
Do you no t'ink dere is God who has
mercee% 1t was splendid summary of
local feeling-that God would not per-
NIT two such courses" at once. And
many reasons have been given to detract
from the credit of excluding the fever,
the blockade, of course, being the main
one. And yet the important fact re-
mains I pat Butler did keep the fever
out; that he cleaned New Orleans as it
never had been cleaned before; that he
made it almost the equal of the most
healthful district Of the south, and his
theory Of the origin and best method of
prevention of yellow fever, though ridi-
culed as a yankee guess" has never
been disproved and is today acted upon
in several southern cities.
A hundred songs and thousand jokes
have been made on his application of
the word "contraband," and yet the
fact remains that at very critical time,
when president, cabinet and northern
public were in quandary, his plain
commensurate and lawyerlike phrase,
"contraband Of war;" settled the issue
at once, and, what was at that particu-
lar time Of more Importance, settled it
in way that made everybody laugh
and was in law unassailable. A black
slave was property. like horse, or he
was not; II like horse, he could be con-
Ascated like horse, and if not-but the
other alternative was not taken. The
phrase will live in history.
His career as proconsul $50 the Comte
de Paris names him) of Louisiana is adj
mitted by all to have been an anomaly.
He took the Code Napoleon, or civil law
(the basis of all Louisiana law, the
municipal law of New Orleans, the law
Of nations and the military law, added
few points from the English common
law and many from his own legal store
house, and combined the whole into the
Code Butleresque. 1t was an anomaly
indeed, but it was a success. And the
funny feature of it was that whenever
the British, the French or the Belgian
consul called to demonstrate against
some action in regard to the slaves he
promptly proved to them out of their
own books that they were violating the
laws of their respective nations in hay
ing anything to do with slavery.