The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-09-06
THAT LIFE OF BONAPARTE.
Mr.. GOOdwin's Reasons for Thinking
n 1t Was Written by LemanOuski.


To the Editor of the indianapolis Journal:
There can be no doubt that Count not
Colonel John Lemanoush was the
author of the Life of Bonaparte," pub
lished at Salem Ind. in 1918, and credited
to "A Citizen of the United States" When
I was pastor of the Methodist Church in
Evansville, in 1S49, he was my guest for
two or three days, and most charming
and welcome guest he was. He came I'M
announced, but by the liberal distribution
of dodgers he had a large audience in my
church that very night TO hear his lecture
on Napoleon, and a still larger the next
two nights. He was eloquent in the true
sense of the word mixing into the sketches
of Napoleon only enough personal incident
to elicit ones interest in the story. This
book contains all of these stories, and
naturally enough, much else besides, while
lacking much detail that would more be-
come a popular lecture than a skeleton
history such as this. The similarity in the
books account of the divorce of Josephine,
the campaign in Egypt and the retreat
from Moscow, and the fuller account in
the lectures, would be impossible on any
other theory than that the same person
was the author of both. And it is not diff
ficult to account for his anxiety
at that time to conceal his
identity. He was a political refugee, for
whose capture a large reward had been
offered. AT that period the safety of such,
within our borders, was not well assured
as now; besides, he had only made his
declaration of intention and had not
ceiVed his naturalization papers. How ne
came to have his book printed at Salem
need be no wonder, when we consider what
Salem was in 1875 and What the art or
book making was. AT that period, next to
| BroOkville, Salem was the most important
| town in Indiana not on the Ohio or Wa
| bash river, ana each owed its Importance
| TO the same facts. BrOokville was within
| ten miles Of the boundary which separated
civilization from the Indians on the east,
| and Salem not greatly, more or less on the
| session of the Indians. The new pur-
| chase was made in October 1918, and the
| Indians had three years in which to vacate.
! The count had probably fioated down the
| Ohio to Louisville, for there were no steam
| boats then; and to get in retreat, had gone
| to Salem, where he wrote this took. Nor
| published in Salem The Salem printing
| office was about as well equipped for such
| job as any Philadelphia office, except as
| to size, and to be printer in those days
| meant much more than now. The
printer paader then WAS composite i6 proof
would set type awhile and then
take a pull at the press, or read proof,
or bind the Job if it had to be bound,
| and in all this the offices in Philadelphia
| had no precedence over an office in Salem,
| for steam had not learned how to do the
| small, with the same slow process of linking
| the forms by niger heads in the hands
of the devil" as that useful person, the
! boy of all work, was irreverently called, the
| roller not yet having been invented; hence
a small book could be printed as we'll at
| Salem as anywhere, especially when it was
| in the hands of such men as Patrick and
| Booth. To the modern reader the imprint
| Patrick & Booth suggests a pretentious
lich hoe
| divisions and subdivisions of labor. There
| was nothing of the kind ut Salem. The
probabilities are that the office was an un-
| plastered upper room not more than sixteen
| to eighteen feet square, warmed in winter
| by log fire, and it's contents consisted of
two stands, one small stone, a small press
| and table, and that Patrick and Booth
| We're the only hands" in the Office except
the printers devil, and that when not set
least three months old, or the latest from
| Washington" not less than ten days old,
thing or anybody in Salem or
| Indiana even, they were at work
on Napoleon Bonaparte, either at the case
! or the press, and that it took six months
| to get it out, having done the binding in
| the same office and by the same hands for
| binding book was as much a part of the
| ing was part of chair making. / was per-
| sonally acquainted with both Mr.. Patrick
and Mr. Booth twenty to twenty-five years
later, when they We're beginning to age
and from their methods at fifty / can easily
imagine that they would have undertaken to
print an edition of the Bible al thirty il
anybody had wanted them to-
The Journal wonders how the copy got
from Knightstown to Salem. There was
no Knightstown in 1918. The Delaware In
dams owned and occupied that vicinity
| then and it was three years before the
surveyor had prepared it for settlement ano
| three or four years later that movers. in
! droves, passed through Brookville, going to
| the Blue river or the Flatrock specifically
or to the new purchase generally. INCLUDING
| Indianapolis. The solution to the questions
! started by the discovery of this little book
| is that Count Lemanouskf FASTENED to
! the hiding of the West as rapidly as DOS
sible on reaching America and there wrote
this book and that the energetic young
men, printers and binders, printed it for
Indianapolis, Sept. 5. T. A. GOODWIN.