The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-09-11

S~~S<~S~sS | sUncie sam is rich enough to give us all farm. punctuating his phrases l by chewing, with great gusto, a piece
 of onion and the coarsest of corn | pone.'"
 Mrs. Clay was filled with indigna-
 tion that her husband was to contest
 with such tactics: ITO me it was the l meeting of a Damascus blade and 9 meat-axe."
 | On 14th of December. 1858, c. e..
 Clay was duly Sworn in," as a mem Der of theUnited States Senate and that season was established the Congress
 sional mess that was composed of so
 many famous compatriots: Senator c. c. Clay and Mrs. Clay. Senator and
 Mrs. Fitzpatrick, Representatives
 Dowdell and Orr.
 So early as '54 sectional feeling ran
 high. and even foreign legations paid
 attention to these rapidly growing
 prejudices in the giving out of invita-
 tions and attentions.
 Like gay dream Hits by. the
 sketches of the entertainments of mo-
 tables of that day, of Mrs. Slidell.
 Mrs. Jacob Thompson, Mrs. Senator
 Toombs, Mrs. Ogle Tayloe, Mrs. How
 ell Cobb, of the Countess de Sartiges, of
 Lord and Lady Napier. How vividiy
 under the joyous remembrances Of
 their appreciative contemporary stand out the beauties of Washington of the l sos. Harriet Williams, one of the | first American women to wed title. the Baroness de Bodesco. first woman to whom was given the title. The American Rose." Addie Cutts (Mrs. stephen A. Douglas) of whom Colonel Harvey Watterson exclaimed he had never seen "so beautiful, so rosy a girl" who "once complained to me poutingly of the cost of gloves" It is little touches like these that make the personages of this book live and move. We all rejoice when Addie Cutts becoming the wife of the little giant" she had gowns and gloves to her hearts de- sire. We see her receiving at her own house in crepe dress looped with pearls her hair ornamented with green leaves and lilies-a beautiful picture" We have stories of Mrs Pugh (Therese Chalfont), the 'beauti- full Mrs. Roger A. Pryor Mrs. Chestnut, Miss Reedy first to intro- duce wearing the curl on the fore head" Fascinating sketches we have of Mrs. Mcclellan. Nellie Marcy, moth- CT of the present Mayor of New York. of the Preston girls of South Caro- lima; of Mrs. General Mcqueen (Mrs. Sarah Mcqueen, now of Eutaw, Ala J. Of Mrs. Clopton. Mrs. Clay writes: ''She joined our mess late in the fif- ties, and at once added to its fame by her charm and beauty. She was a sister of Governor Ligon of Alabama One of her daughters married the poet, Clifford Lanier, and another be- came the wife of Judge William L. Chambers, who for several exciting years represented our government at Samoa"
 Montgomery people may be interested in the story of. Benny Fitzpatrick's, early youth as told with delicious fun by Mrs. Clay-Clopton. T think of all the harmonious couples I have known Senator and Mrs. Fitzpatrick easily led, though near to them I must place Gen. eral and Mrs. McQueen-their boys enfants terribles. both of them of a most emphatic type-Benny Fitzpat- rick was at once the idol of his par ents and the terror of the hotel; and, as Mrs. Fitzpatrick and I were cordial ly united in other interests of life, so we shared the maternal duties as be- came two devoted sisters. Our boy Benny receiving the motherly over sight of whichever of us happened to be near him when occasion arose for aid or admonItion. Mrs. Fitz' deliv- cred her rebukes with Oh, Benny dear! How could your but I. his foster | mother. was constrained to resort be- | times to a certain old fashioned pun | ishment usually. administered with the broadside of a slipper. Benny, like George Washington, was the possessor | of little hatchet, with which he work ed dreadful havoc. He chopped at the rosewood furniture of his moth- CTS drawing room. while his proud par ents, amazed at his precocity, not to say powers. stood by awe-struck, and paid the bill! We all became his subjects: thus he overran Hannah, his colored nurse, until one day Pat came, l-Pat Doran. Pat had been page at | the Senate. and in some forgotten way
 he and little Benny had become insep- arabic friends. Benny was taken by | this friend to see the varying sight and
 the various quarters of the city. One
 day Hannah's excitement ran high.
 LOT! Miss Relia,' she burst out, im-
 petulously to Mrs. Fitzpatrick. Pat Do-
 ran done carried Benny to the Cath>lic Church an got him sprinkled, n den | he brung him to communion, an first
 thing Pat knowed. Benny he drunk up
 all the holy water an eat up the whole waferr
 Of how President Pierce came in the
 disguise of a great coat and soft hat"
 to make a call and have a long talk
 with Senator Clay, Is most interesting
 reading.
 Of MT. Pierce's Message of '55, Mrs Clay states: It fell like a bombshell
 on the Black Republican Party. It's
 bold pro-slaveryism startled even his
 friends; for, never had a predecessor,
 while in the Executive Chair. talked
 so strongly or so harshly to sectional
 ists and fanatics. To this stand, so
 bravely taken. his defeat at the next
 Presidential election was doubtless at least partially attributed. Meantime the South owed him much. and none of
 It's representatives was more staunchly
 devoted 10 President Pierce than was
 the Senator from Northern Alabama" That President Pierce felt the weight
 of coming events that were to divide a nation and cost the country the flower | of her manhood. Mrs. Clay's description
 of him entering and leaving the White
 House suffices to show: "A year be- fore his inauguration I had seen him
 bound up the stairs with the elasticity
 and lightness of q schoolboy. He
 went out after four years a staid and grave man."
 If I were to take from the pages before me the anecdotes that are en- | thraIling, the relations of events that | are thrilling the story of the suf-