The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-04-05

vation set in before it was over. One
grist-mill bears the marks today of
having been broken into, though
protected day and night by forty po-
licemen, and it was said that three
hundred sacks of -four were taken
from that mill, and distributed, baked,
and eaten in two days. This was
but one town, and Lancashire is all
town. There were 2, 300, 900 people
in that county dependent on the re-
suits of that long-drawn-out war.
Abraham Lincoln's proclamation of
liberty to the slaves is the best-known
foreign document to the cotton opera
tives of Lancashire. Many boy and
girl can repeat it offhand. I remem
Der the Government inspector of
schools addressing our school of
twelve hundred scholars once, and he
asked the question "Whom do you
regard as the greatest man outside of
England?" and hundred voices
shouted in chorus, Abraham Lin
coin !" as if "Old Abe" were still
living. The second question was:
"Who do you think is the greatest
man that this country of ours has
produced ?" Here a medley arose
amid which John Bright, w. E. Glad
stone, and Tom Brown were promi-
nent. One little fellow said: "My
dad says Lincoln is bigger'n m all. F."
Need 1 tell you that every fiber of
American cotton (and I know by
long and sad experience it is the best
cotton in the world) bears to the
Lancastrian the name and stamp of
your great liberator? The man to
whom Lee surrendered said that Man
chester gave him the greatest well
come next to Washington.
Among the maryland there were
many-who came to Our relief in
those sad, dark days of starvation
and death were the good old Queen
and Tom Brown-Thomas Hughes,
Judge of the Supreme Court of
Queens Bench, London. But all
the boys of the English language
know him as the man who wrote
"Tom Browns School Days" Tom
was a lawyer in London then, and he
dropped everything and "stumped"
the country, and begged, borrowed,
and-I was going to say-stole for
the Lancashire operatives. He shook
the stocracy out of their lethargy,
anG ever let them rest until they
came to the help of the sufferers. A
settlement of Lancashire people in
Wisconsin sent carload of -four
across the ocean, consigned Thomas
Hughes, Liverpool" But it got to
Manchester, and men broke away the
car door before the train stopped, and
women carried the -four away with
them in their aprons, or in any shape.
Times were hard then
Judge Hughes, in return for what
Chicago did to help him in his relief
work at that time, when the city
burned some years afterwards, fur
nished three hundred autograph vol
umes for the free library of the new
Chicago. They are there still.
In one corner of the great Cotton
Exchange in Manchester is little
stand, and under glass globe is a
miniature bale of raw cotton, and be-
hind it the legend in gilt lettering
part OF THE FIRST BALE OF FREE
COTTON. Shipped from West Vir-
ginia, U. S., to Liverpool, 1865. Free
cotton is King. But what did it
cost 7"
The story of that bale of cotton is
soon told. People from all the towns
footed it' to Liverpool and got
Hurry" (flat wagon, and trimmed
it with flowers and bunting, and plac-
ed the bale of cotton in the center of
the wagon, and the flag that you
know so we'll newly vindicated in lib
erty, and the flag under which I was
born, and which, in spite of all its
mistakes and blunders of the I77os,
is glorious flag, and between them
the picture that you love, that my
father loved, that you suffered for,
that my folks suffered for, the plain
picture that appeals to plain people in
all the world-ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The rest of the space was filled with
children, and the wagon was dragged
from the docks through Exchange
Street and Lime Street to St. Georges
Square, where it served as an altar
for the Bishop of Manchester, who
preached sermon to twenty thousand
people on the Lessons of Civil Liber-
ty. That sermon and the song of the
children still echo in their hearts.
have asked those men again and
again, "Would you do it again ?
Would you suffer again for liberty's
sake?" And 1 asked myself, Would
l be willing to sacrifice mother and
father at an early age through suffer
ing resultant on that starvation period
for this cause?" The answer is with
them, as it is with you and me,
great big YES"
My friend Jacob Riis has been tell
ing the American reader about the
Making of an American. 1t seems
to me like this, to change an old
aphorism "Some are born Ameri-
cans, some achieve Americanism, and
some have Americanism thrust upon
them" Mr.. Riis was of the second
class, and 1 think 1 belong to the
third.
THE HAND IN HEALTH.