The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-04-12

it, and the end is as gay and bright as a fairy tale
 The time of the tale is that of the famous tulip craze in Holland, a craze that overwhelmed almos- the entire na- ton and stirred men sa deeply that il has remained as an important historical occurrence. Fortunes were won and lost Populations and careers were ruined As much as 13,000 forins was paid for a single bulb and for three bulbs of a special variety the lucky grower ob- tained S0,000 florins. Bulbs were gambled in as stocks are today.
 XNTHEN the Tulip Growers associa- w ton of Haarlem offered loo.ooo
 W forins for the production of a large black tulip without a spot, even the widest tulip enthusiast of that tulip-mad time did not believe it possible that the prize would ever be claimed. Yet such was the power of the mania that the Dutch hortieulturists thought of nothing else from that moment.
 Chief among the most eager was Dr. Cornelius van Baerle, who had become famous for his achievements in the work of creating new and wonderful varieties. A man of great scientific attainments, he was aided by great wealth, and within two years he succeeded in cultivating tulip of a shade of brown so deep that it bor- dered closely on black.
 The good Cornelius gazing with all a fathers love on this extraordinary growth, itself sufficient to make him world Famous, esteemed himself the happiest man in Holland. And any stranger, en- tering his native town of Dort and be- holding his beautiful house standing among the equally beautiful houses of his neighbors in the smiling streets with wonderful slken Indian and Chinese rugs floating from the graceful balconies that overhund the shining river, and with eV- cry brick and timber scrubbed, waXed and polished till it dazzled, would nave agreed with him.
 Rich, young, strong as iron, handsome and learned, what more could mortal wish?
 So Cornelius van Baerle thought, and lived among his gorgeous subjects like the potentate of some fantastic Oriental wonder realm. blissfully unconscious that dey and night he was being watched by a malign eye and that every new sue cess added new poison to the hatred of an unseen spy.
 The spy was his neighbor, Isaac Boxtel who had been tulip grower before Cor nelius took up the pursuit, and who had been on the very verge of becoming Ia nous himself when Dr. van Baerle out stripped him. This in itself would have been quite enough to explain Boxtef s
 I,satA AisR ptp 1 that Cornelius actually was breeding a tulip that promised in time to produce a bulb from which d black one might arise. cupidity was added tJ professional jealousy, and he tortured himself with plans to obtain possession of bulb
 He left his own bulbs to molder in the pits his blossoms to perish in the garden beds. while he wasted his eyesight and his lift in spying on Van Baerle From dawn till the last light was extinguished at night in his unconscious neighbor' s house Boxtel's telescope followed his every motion.
 One day there was a great oommoton in quiet Dort. Cornelius de Wit, governor of Pulten and deputy to the states gen. eral. had come to visit his godson Dr.. van Baerle.
 Around Cornelius and his eminent brother. John de Witt. there already was gathering the black storm that was to break in dreadful ruin over the heads of the two patriots, put pr. Van Baerle, iln- rnersed in his life of tulips and science, heard nothing of the mutterings and rum blings of the coming tempest
 Cornelius de Wits visit was directly connected with it, however, although he did not intimate it with word. lie looked at Van Baerle art treasures, his pictures painted by himself and even his tulips. though the statesman cared little for the flowers At last when it was time to go, he drew from his pocket a white package, carefully sealed, which he asked him to put away in a secret place. Van Baerle took it respectfully and lad it away in the back of a large drawer, which contained his finest bulbs.
 Boxtel watched all this with his teie- scope, vastly puzzled.
 Eight months later, on the 10th of Au- gust. 1872 Cornelius de Witt, maimed and distorted from the rack, was lying in a . cell Tn the BuyleHilOlt tnS ioi prison of The Hague, waiting for his brother John to take him away to the ex- ile to which both had been sentenced by the victorious party of William of Orange.
 A fierce mob besieged the place, crying for the blood of the two great brothers. It was only by approaching the Buyten- hof through a secret way in the rear that John succeeded in entering.
 Hastily the brothers prepared 10 flee unseen, for they realized that though the deputies had sentenced them merely to exile. there would be no check to the bloodier intent of the mob. But before they left the cell, Cornelius told John that he had given Dr. van Baerle im- portant documents for safekeeping, which would ruin him if they were found, now that the De Wits were in disgrace. Therefore he tore leaf out of his Bible |, and wrote a letter with his maimed fingers. This he gave to his servant with orders to ride at top speed to Dort and deliver 1t to pr. van Baerle.
 Less than half an hour afterward the massacred bodies of the two statesmen were hanging heads down from a scaffold , near the prison, and the mob that had caught them before they could get through the city gate was offering shreds of their flesh and clothing for sale on the streets of The Hague