The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-06-19
HIS LAST HOURS.
w. T. Stead Describes the End
of Gov. Pingree.
English Editors Glowing 1'ri-
butte to the Dead.
HE LONGED FOR HOME.
Foundation of His Illness Laid
in Southern Prison.
Had Valuable Stores of KnowI-
edge From South Africa.

New York. June ia dispatch to the
Journal and Advertiser from London
quotes w. T. Stead upon the death OF
Ex-Governor Pingree of Michigan as
follows:
Governor Pingree of Michigan,
the one-time famous mayor of Detroit,
lies dead at the Grand hotel in London.
"Pingree returned to London from
the continent after a. brief and eventful
visit to South Africa, carrying with
him a sentence of death.
He was conscious up to the last of
everything but his approaching DEATH
He knew he was weak and i'll, but
longed to return home to his own peo-
pie. From time to time he gave orders
as to packing his trunks in order that
he might start at once without delay
He had been attended constantly
all day by his son, Hazen Pingree, who
did everything he could in the way or
personal tenderness or procuring the
best advice in London, but nothing doc
tors could do could arrest the disease
They say his weakness dated a long
time back, as long indeed as the tine
when he lay captive in a confederate
prison in the great civil war, but its
acute form only manifeS ted itself during
his stay in Dresden.
He was making a tour of the con-
of Americas export business. On his
arrival in London he was aiIing rather
badly, but it seemed so little to occa-
sion alarm that his secretary and tra-v-
cling companion, Colonel Sutton
deemed it safe to return home, leaving
him with his son. The dysentery, in
stead of getting better, grew worse.
Sir Thomas Barlow was called, but was
unable to check the fatal f1ux, which,
continuing day after day. was suffi-
cient to sap the strongest constitution.
1t was accompanied by liberation,
which the physicians found impossible
to deal with until the dysentery was
checked. When to these intestinal COM
plications was added acute peritonitis,
the strength of the patient was unable
to rally.
notable of modern Americans is closed,
a man who for strength of character,
frmness of purpose, indomitable en-
ergy and immense public spirit pre-
SentS an example to two worlds.
Pingree had an extremely interest
ing experience in his brief visit to
South Africa. He went out armed with
recommendations from Chamberlain
which enabled him to pass everywhere
freely through the English lines. When
he left London he was fed with all the
calumnies upon the Beers which have
been resorted to to palliate the attempted
determination of the republics. But the
moment he got to South Africa the
scales began to fall from his eyes
Recommendation from the colonial
office enabled him to penetrate regions
hermetically sealed to the ordinary civ
ilian ACCOMPANIED only by his secre-
tary he penetrated into the heart of the
seat of war and soon had an opportun-
ity of making the acquaintance of the
Beers at first hand. Extraordinary
though it may be, he was able to lunch
in the British camp in the morning and
dine with the Boer commando in the
evening. He found to his astonishment
that the Beers were by no means so
black as they had been painted. They
were by no means devoid of human
intelligence, they dressed and washed
like civilized beings welcomed with gen
erous hospitality the travelling Ameri-
can who found them far from extrem-
lists.
THE commanders he visited were
well clothed and well armed, every man
possessing at least two horses with a
good reserve of ammunition. They are
safeguarding it no doubt but they still
have stores of Mauser cartridges to fall
back upon but for the present they are
doing all their fighting with Lee-Met-
fords and cartridges which they supply
themselves with from the British stores
1T was impossible that such a man as
BY the spectacle of these heroic burghers
maintaining their struggle against over
whelming odds for liberty and indepen-
dence of their country. He found no dir
ficulty whatever in traversing the hostile
nnes; ne Grove IN a cape cart win ms
escort. It was somewhat perilous for them
for the Beers have the dfsa greeable al
though natural habit of shooting all bicy-
Gle riders on sight. for with them cyclist
and British dispatch rider are synony-
nous terms.
''They came back unscathed It is much
to be regretted that in the interests OF
truth and justice so keen an observer
should not have been spared to return
to his own country to describe the Beers
as he found them in the struggle which
must nave recaHed at every turn the
stirring episodes of the war of indepen-
dence.