Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1899-12-01
Germany, whore, as he spoke the Ian

Germany, where, as he spoke the Ian
euage Auently, he managed to get
along pretty well in the retail tobacco
business. From Germany he removed
| to Havre. France, using his knowledge
of French to equal advantage. But
| London held out the strongest financial
inducements to him.
There, in spite of the climate, social
and political drawbacks, he prospered
and was popular, Everybody who knew
him liked him; the British found him
an honest man, with the feelings and
,, the polished manners of what they call
",he upper classes" his humble bust
ness, his eccentricitiss and his unique
Georgian manner of speech notwith-
standing. Tie Americans, including
Consul General Merritt, who was one of
his close friends and frequent visitors,
! both in the shop and at the Colonel's su
, burban house, must have felt that, in
spite of his hopeless irreconcilability
and uureconstructedness, the man was
American to the tips of his fingers, and
specimen of the nationally OF whom
they could we'll be proud.
This was one strikingly picturesque
and, on the whole, noble type OF the IT.
reconcilable Southerner. There were
others generally less picturesque and
not always so noble. A billiard mark
er, for example, in q suburban hotel,
whom the habitues, including several
officers of regiment quartered near by,
always addressed as "Major." proved
on Inquiry to be genuine South Caro-
lima ex-Confederate staff soldier. AS
rule his conduct was respectable and
his manners entirely beyond reproacb,
but it was understood that, contrary to
the rule in English hotel billiard rooms,
D patrons of those particular tables were
never to offer the marker q drink.
This, though necessary, was all the
harder on both patrons and marker be-
cause no one would ever have thought
of daring to offer him coin. 1t was
only in the alterations following his
occasional sprees that he spoke Of
the VOW he had taken never again to
set foot on American soil or on the deck
of o vessel flying the American flag.
When not suffering from the effects OF
his weakness, he never spoke OF Amerl-
CO or OF anything connected with his
own past. -,
The cases Of D. end Mel. were hard
| " in the line of the irreconcilable
Southerner. These two men-couslns-
we're before the civil wer both officers
of the British 90 b Highlanders, now
the First Battalion of the Gordons.:
They resigned their commissions and
came to this country, on a romantic
impulse, to fight for the South. at the
end of the war-and of the Confedera-
cy-they both found themselves with
cut career, and both their small for
tunes had been invested in Confederate
government loans. Knowing no other
way of earning living but soldering
they took service in the Egyptian army
The Egyptian army, indeed, was,
thirty years ago, before the days OF
Cromer and of Kitchener, the refuge of
mum mberless ex-Confederates, and OF
those who chose to expatriate them
selves perhaps 30 other soldiers of the
lost cause Jared so we'll as class as the
American mercenaries of 1smail. Many
of them rose to high rank, but few ever
left Egypt to die, as one gallant Louis
anian died, in his own country with
the rank of Pscha and the jeweled
decorations cf the Khedive.