Connecticut western news., 1897-10-21
THE LATE CHARLES ANDERSON DANA.

a small interest in it was given to him. At that time, however, Chicago was not the great metropolitan city that it is to- day, and MT Dana found difficulties of various sorts in establishing the paper He sold out his interest, receiving therefor some ST 900, and that was the first time in his life that he found himself possessed of any considerable sum of money A friend advised him to invest it in a house in New York, which he did, and others of his old time Republican friends notably Colonel Fred A. Conkling, brother of Roscoe Conkling, subscribed sum sufficient to buy for Mr Dana the New York Sun, which was to be published as low priced Republican newspaper
 MT. Dana took charge on the 1st of Jan uary, 1S6S the paper then having about 40, 900 circulation, and his conspicuous career began with that issue of the paper He called about him a competent staff, and in less than two years had in many respects revolutionized journalistic meth ods He sought for news where other edi- tors had ignored, and aimed to have it presented so that the mere reading would be interesting and entertaining His idea was that fact of itself of no particular consequence might nevertheless in the tell ing of it be made as interesting as more important news The Sun gained the rep utation of being not only the most care fully edited, but the best written, paper in New York, and some of the sketches and reports that have appeared in its columns have been regarded as equal to the work of the most famous writers
 Under Mir Dana's management the pa per secured at one time as high circula tion as l50, 900 and it's Sunday edition even more than that MT Dana idea was that the editorial page in the paper should be made fully as attractive as the news pages, and while some of the comments-some of those fantastic and seemingly ridiculous editorial articles which have appeared from time to time upon the editorial page-hsve seemed to violate all the traditions of jour nalism, yet they were written and printed for the purpose of compelling the readers of the paper to talk about the editorial page. Mir Dana's extraordinary learning I for he has been a student and investi- gator all his days-enabled him to detect errors in the writings of his associates, so that The Sun under his active manage ment seldom was historically or scientific ally inaccurate.
 Mir. Dana was hard worker. Mental application was a delight to him. He learned botany while riding to and from his office In his spare moments he mas tered the Icelandic language. He knew Dante probably better than any other ] American in New York, so that when he had his interview with the pope he re- sponded in quotation from Dante to an other which the pope had made to him Spanish literature delighted him, and he mastered it at odd moments He could speak French with the Parisian accent, German with tho accent of Berlin, and he conversed in Russian if required.
 A learned horticuturist, the gardens of his summer place were filled with choice flowers, and for trees he had an affection which led him to know them all and to raise upon his island retreat In Long Is- land sound every variety of fir tree capable of living in a temperate climate.
 He liked good horses, and he kept his