The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-07-15

tered the Council Chamber at Hart
 ford, Conn.,, in October, 1887, accom-
 panied by an armed guard and several drummers and fifers to demand the surrender of the charter of the colony, he drowned the protests of the mem
 bers of the council by ordering the drummers to strike up!" The wary
 Colonists, however, were too much for
 the irascible royal governor. The sur denly extinguished the lights, and
 when fresh candles were brought the
 charter had disappeared. It had been
 hastily removed and hidden in a, hol-
 low tree, afterwards famous as the
 "CharterOak." The late Colonel Nor
 row, of Niles, Mich, possessed 8 euri-
 osity in the shape of a couple of drum sticks which have a remarkable his-
 tory. They were found by the side of a
 dead British drummer at the battle of
 Saratoga, in 1777. They were handed
 over to drummer in the Continental army, by whom they were used
 throughout the remainder of the Re-
 voiutionary War. A son of the Anleri-
 can owner was a drummer in the War
 of 1872 and was with General Jack son on the memorable Sth day of Jam
 uary, 1915, when the British, under Packenham, sustained such a terrible
 defeat at New-O Orleans. A. grandson
 used the sticks in the Mexican War, and a great-grandson carried them
 throughout the Civil War, rattling away at the head of the famous Mich
 igan Iron Brigade in the grand review
 at Washington at the close of the war.
 One famous commander must cer-
 tainly have held the drum in high hon., or for he. is said 10 have directed at his death that lhis skin should bernade
 into a drum, and that instrument beat
 en at the head of his army. The author
 of this queer concil was Pohn Ziska,
 the military leader of the Hussites, or Taborites, in the early part of the. fifteenth century. He was victorious in
 more than one hundred engagements,
 and won thirteen pitched battles.
 If the drum is to have a patron saint none other than St. Patrick can claim the distinction. All will remember the greatest of St. Patrick's miracles, that of driving the snakes and other rep
 tiles out of Ireland and rendering the Irish soil forever after obnoxious to the sepent race. Colgan relates that St. Patrick accomplished this feat by beating a drum, which he struck with such fervor that he knocked a hole in it, thereby endangering the success of the miracle But an angel, appearing, mended the drum, and the patched ir- strument was long exhibited as a holy relic. So much for the story.
 The first Napoleon, who cared but little for music of kind, held the drum Tn high favor, and the drum corps of the French army never attained such excellence as under his regime. Orders deciding the fate of some of the great est battles in history have been writ ten on the drum, which, indeed, is fre- quently made to serve as desk in the field, and drumhead courts martial have brought speedy sentence and, con- dlsn punishment to. many an offender. Junot, Duke of Abrantes, and colonel general of the Hussars in the French imperial army, had his first introduc- tion to Napoleon across a drumhead. It was at the siege of Toulon, where Junot was only 8 private soldier of the artillery, and Napoleon merely a newly tledged brigadier general, that the latter visiting one of the batteries, called for a soldier who could write, and Junot proffered his services. At the generals dictation he wrote an order on drumhead. Just as he fln- ished, a shot from the enemy struck the ground almost at his feet and dashed shower of earth over the doc ument. There, mon general" said Junot, gayly, springing to his feet, Eve shall not want for sand to dry it. since messieurs the enemy have saved Us the trouble" From that moment Junot's rise was rapid, until, under the empire, one of his victories in Partu- gal gave him the tilte of duke.
 It would be unfair to conclude this reference to the deeds of heroic drum mers without mentioning the tambours of the "0ld Guard" of Napoleon, who perished to man, rather, boy, on the fatal field of Waterloo. Among them all, perhaps the most famous is the child-hero Joseph Bara, to whom a statue has been erected in the church square at Palaiseau, near Paris, France | His father was a woodranger on the | Palaiseau estate of the Condes, and