The age-herald., 1901-07-20
HON. BEN DE LENDS
 IN THE PENITENTIARY

acknoWledgments are also tendered to those connected with their several de- partments And in conclusion, to all my friends I extend a fond farewell. May the blessings of heaven rest upon each and all. To all most near and dear to me, good-by!
 BEEN DE LENDS"
 Ills Remarkable Career.
 A Russian Jew by birth, the career of Ben de Lemos in the United States began. as far as can be learned. at Brazito, Mo- a small town near Jefferson City, the Capital of the State. There he worked on a farm and taught the children of his employer at night. He was even then an educated man. After a few years he was given a position of subordinate charac- ter in the Capitol building at Jefferson City by the Governor. Thomas c. Fletch- CT, and when Governor Mcclure was elected he was made messenger.
 His exceptional ability for one in his position attracted the attention of Sena- tor John B. Henderson, who brought him to Washington and initiated him into the game of national politics, and he fol- lowed Carl Sohurz in the campaigns of the latter.
 Washington hfe at that time was too strenuous for De Lemos, and the far famed mint julep of the south proved too seductive for his palate to decline. He went down the hill for a time and then disappeared. He made his way to New York and thence to Baltimore as tramp. At the latter city he slowed away on a steamer south-bound and landed at Mo bile. This was the beginning of that ca reer of brilhancy and crime that finally led him to the doors of the penitentiary, where he now is prisoner. That was in 1869.
 Slept In Speakers Chair.
 For while he led the life of a tramp, and during this nomadic existence he ar rived at Montgomery. He had no place to sleep, and crept into the Statehouse. The cushion of the speakers chair was tempting and he curled up and slept there all night. As 8 remarkable sequence of that sleep 1t may be stated that in less than two years from that night De Lemos had been elected to the Legisla- ture of Alabama, and was entitled to Q seat in the chair in which he had slept Prior to this rise on the ladder of for tune he had posed in the cotton fields of the south as a negro preacher and saint, imposing on the negroes in order to gain their confidence and their small change. selling them Bibles which he assured them were autographed by General Grant Tn Missouri he was a Republican politician, in South Carolina a Democrat and Prohibitionist alternately, as occasion demanded, and in Alabama tramp, la borer, politician member of the Legisla- ture, alternate to the convention at St. Louis which nominated Mckinley to the Presidency and skillful forger of pension vouchers.
 The Cook affair finally became his un- doing. He was indicted on eleven counts. tried on them all and convicted on only one But this one was sufficient to send him to the penitentiary, and he Is safe from doing any evil for at least the term of his sentence. Those who know him and have followed his career say that he will not be cured by this enforced idleness in his chosen field, and that he will emerge from the grim walls equipped with an armament of new ideas for the acquire ment of easy and sudden wealth. So strong was the power of the man that it required four years to convict him.
  taken in the matter, I am yours very sincerely.
 SAMUEL SPENCER,
 President