The Irish standard., 1899-06-24


ankle severely. He was at once taken
to the nearest house and was obliged
to remain there several days. During
this stay many persons came to see the
young stranger from America. Among
these was Miss Barbara u dElaguine, who
subsequently became his wife. As Mac
Gahan could not speak Russian, and
the young lady knew no English, they
were obliged to converse in French, and
that was the language Of their court
ship.
Early in 1873 MacGallan made long
and solitary journey across Asia to Xiii
va, and later in the same year he cruised
through the Mediterranean on board a
warship, which eventually crossed the
ocean, touching at Cuba, Key West and
New York. For ten months in 1874 he
was with the army of Don Carlos, the
pretender. Being captured by the Re-
publicans OF Spain, he was about to be
executed as Carlist; but again he was
saved by the Intervention OF United
States representative. MacGahan's next
move was up into the Arctic regions on
board the Pandora. The following year
he was with the Turkish army, making
his memorable trip through Bulgaria.
Having gone to St. Petersburg, he ac-
companied the Russian army to Bull
garia in 1877. There he was hailed as
their liberator and delivercr. Men, wo-
men and children ran after him as he
rode through the streets. They kissed his
hands, his boots and even the little pet
pony that had carried him so many
miles. Archibald Forbes, England's
great war correspondent, who rode by
his side, said that the gratitude and af-
fiction demonstrated toward MacGahan
by the people of Bulgaria surpassed
anything OF the kind he had ever seen
or could imagine.
The following is part oi the tribute
paid to the memory of MacGahan by Sir
Archibald Forbes
"MacGahan's work in the exposure OF
the Turkish atrocities i'll Bulgaria,
which he carried OH so stronghold
which he carried OH so thoroughly and
effectively in 1876, produced very re-
markable results. Regarded simply on
its literary merits, there is nothing 1
know Of to excel it III vividness,
in pathos, in a burning earnestness,
in a glow of conviction that fires
from the heart to the heart His
letters stirred Mr.. Gladstone into
convulsive paroxysm OF burning re-
volt against the barbarities they de-
scribed. They moved England to its
very depths, and men travelling in rail-
way carriages were to be noticed with
flushed faces and moistencd eyes as they
read them. Lord Beaconsfeld tried to
whistle down the wind the awful sgnif-
canoe of the disclosures made in those
wonderful letters. The master OF jeers
characterized as coffee house babbe'
the revelations that were making the ma
tions ttrob with indignant passion
"a British official, Mr. Walter Barring,
was sent into Bulgaria on the track of
the two Americans, MacGahan and
Schuyler with the intent of disparaging
their testimony by the result of cold Of
fetal investigation. But 10! Barring, Off
cial as he was, nevertheless was an hon
est man with eyes and a heart; and he
who had been sent out on the mission
to curse MacGafan blessed him instead,
for he more than confirmed the latter's
figures and pictures OF murder, brutality
and atrocity. 1t is not too much to
say that this Ohio boy, who worked on
a farm in his youth and picked up his
education anyhow, changed the face OF
Eastern Europe. When he began to
write of the Bulgarian atrocities the
Turk swayed direct rule to the banks
of the Danube, and his suzerainty
stretched to the Carpathians. Now Rou-
mania owns no more the suzerainty
Servia is an independent kingdom, Bull
garia is tributary but in name, and
Roumania is governed not for the
Turk, for for the Roumanians. All this
reform is the direct and immediate out
come of the Russo Turkish war.
"But what brought about the Russo
Turkish war? What forced the Gar,
reluctant as he was and inadcquately
prepared, to cross the Danube and wage
with varying fortune the war that
brought his legions finally to the very
gates OF Stamboul? The passionate, ir-
resistible pressure OF the Pan-Slavist
section of his subjects, burning with un-
governable fury against the ruthless
Turk, because of his cruelties on those
brother Slavs OF Bulgaria and Roume-
liza; and the man who told the world and
those Russian Slavs of those horrors
the man whose voice rang out clear
through the nations with its burden OF
wrongs and shames and deviltry, was no
illustrious statesman, no famed littera-
teur, but just this young American from
off the little farm in Perry county,
Ohio"
Cheap Rate Excursions on the Fourth
Of July.
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