The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-12-23

Live Masks Are-Masks Made of
Abraham Lincoln and Edwin Booth.
From the New Orleans Picayune.
one day a number of years ago 1 was in
sypher's great curio and curiosity store.
New York, where 1 saw the death mask of
Napoleon Bonaparte, taken on the day of
his deatl"at st. Helena May 3. 1921, writes
Col. Macarthur of the Troy Budget. Ma
poleon arrived there in October, 1915, hav-
ing been sent into exile in St. Helena after
the battle of Waterloo by England and
the allied powers. That battle was fin
ished June Is, 1915, and as the great con-
auerer of Europe was then defeated, he
signed his abdication of emperor Of France
four days later, and prepared to embark
for the United States, but finding that
there was little hone of escaping the Brit
ish cruisers, he voluntarily surrendered
himself TO Capt. Maitland, of the British
man-of-war Bellerophon, as a prisoner
Of war, and was soon after carried to
the island Of st. Helena, in exile, place
from which he could neither be rescued
or find an escape, which England held
guard with her ships and where he lived
in confinement for nearly six years. until
the time of his death. AS he voluntarily
surrendered TO the British government as
prisoner Of war. and was not taken on
the battlefield, his exile for life to a small,
rocky inhospitable, volcanic island in the
South Atlantic has generally been con-
demned by all impartial historians as
one of the most barbarous, cowardly and
cruel violations of the accepted rules of
warfare ever perpetrated in modern times
by any nation claiming to be civilized. II
is in line with the barbarous acts of the
British in India in blowing men captured
in war from the mouths of cannon. st.
Helena is 300 miles from the west coast
Of Africa and 1000 east of the South Amer
lean coast, standing out solitary and
alone in the waste of waters of the South
Atlantic, in south latitude about Is de-
grees, and therefore well within the hot
tropics, with an area of about forty-seven
square miles, with a population of 5000 or
1900, mostly Asiatics and AfrlcanS-an
island without trees, cut up with volcanic
ravines and gulches, encircled by pre-
with only one or two narrow raVine land
ings, which were easily guarded by sol
diers and small forts to prevent the pos
sbility of escape or rescue.
Such was the cage in which England
confined the great Napoleon, who from
1886 until 1915 had menaced and shook
all the thrones and monarchies of Europe,
only at last, like Prometheus, to be
chained to a rock, there to have his life
who fastened him there. The remains of
Napoleon were removed to France in 1910
and now repose in the Hotel de Invalides,
In Paris, built for their reception. France
bought the house at Longwood, where he
was Gagged in St. Helena, and now Great
Britain, no longer scared by the shadow
Of the great Napoleon, permitted a per-
petual French guard over the house that
he occupied when "A prisoner, and of the
grave in the valley where he was first
buried. The death mask of Napoleon was
taken the day he died by a French artist,
Who had accompanied him into exile, and
this is now in possession of the French
government. There are very few repli
Cas- of it in the world. The first was
obtained by Lord Truro. an English no
hleman, who got it through the inter-
Gession of the British ambassador to
France. Lord Truro brought this death
mask of Napoleon to New York some
years ago to aid an English artist who
was there to make a marble bust of Ma
poleon for him. This is believed to have
been done, and after that the mask re-
NAMED with the artist. 1t was this mask
which saw at Syphers, as told above 1t
was left there for sale. Whether the
English artist got hard up, or offered
Il for sale because he no longer wanted
IT, having concluded to leave New York,
don t know. / tried to buy it of Sypher
when l first saw it a his curio store. The
price asked was steep and beyond my
means at the moment At Sypher's they
refused to tell me who owned it, and stated
1t had been left there for sale at a fixed
H price. Thus bafled, the desire for owner
snip of the mask grew on me, for had
Deen at the tomb of Napoleon, had marked
II Jhe great monuments and landmarks he
mad left of himself in France and else
H where in Europe, had carefully and ana
Il lytically studied the battle of Waterloo
on all the field where it was fought during
the three bloody days of the struggle. and
mad seen every celebrated picture of Ma
RPoieon in Europe, When | next visited
New York / went resolved to buy that
qeath mask if it broke me. But on inquiry
found it gone. Inquiring as to who the
II purchaser was, they told me the owner
W w IO1cr
Ior sale They still declined to tell who
was the owner.
left Sypher's chagrined and disap-
POINTED, and often blamed myself after
wards that I had not bought it even at
me considerable sum asked for it, for
knew it was the exact counterpart and
veritable image of the great Napoleon's
lace and head exactly as they looked i'm
medately after his death three-uuarters Of
century ago. To see it was like bringing
one face to face with the most remarka-
Ole man this or the last century has pro-
uuced. A short time ago 1 was in the art
studio of Alexander Doyle, in New York
me famous sculptor who is making the
statue of Emma Willard, the late great
FL female educator, which is next spring to
be set up to her memory in the Troy Fee
male seminary grounds-when 1 was
started to observe hanging on his walls
what at once recognized as the death
81 mask of Napoleon, which / had missed
* buying at Sypher's. Mr.. Doyle told me
now Lord Truro had left it with the Eng
ISh artist, as related above, and that
When that artist left New York he had pre-
Sented it to Mr.. Doyle. When 1 had told
Mr.; Doyle of my former attempt to buy it,
ana the interest l had taken in it, he at
Ghce made me happy by generously max
.ns a present of it to me, for which act of
generosity he has my most grateful thanks
iend that is how the death mask of Napo-
leon came to the Budget.
Mr. Lawrence Hutton is probably the
IoIemost collector of death masks in the
Morld and probably has the largest collec-
ION in existence. He and others have
Written and published much about death
q o. ri facf mo eli IN ha
collection are replicas of those of Dante
an9 Iasso made in the sixteenth century
4 SaL5 the latest that of Edwin Booth who
"sd a few years 60
co n Iate publication says Mr.. Hutton's
i toiecuon ranges from Sir Isaac New
on the wisest of men, to Sambo the low
type, OF the American negro; from
BnnHer cromwell to Henry Clay; from
parte to Grant; from Keats to Leo
ro,,, from Plus * to Thomas Paine;
& TrSOo6nl. Ben Caunt, the prize fighter, to
roinaS Chalmers, the light of the Scot
pulpit. With the exception of two
liob Inree copied from the originals in the
oil