The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1908-10-08

As the maker of this book had not
reached his teens it is naturally very
miscellaneous collection, but his nautical
taste is shown in the selection OF sea
tales, shipping statistics, etc. There are
many pictures, including one of the Great
Republic, the first four-masted ship;
portrait of her builder, Donald Mckay;
the clipper ship Sovereign of the Seas
under full sail, also built by Mckay; two
pictures of the yacht America taken at
the time of her winning the cup at Cowes,
and coastwise steamers of fifty years ago.
Of a later date, in the last pages OF the
book, are pictures of the steamship Great
Eastern with detailed description OF the
Leyiathan, as she was then called.
Jokes have their place also; some OF
them familiar in current literature, and
there are poems by which at least two
tlagarists have been brought to book IN
these later days. A little poem by Thomas
Bailey Aldrich, then fiedgling poet, liked
itself firmly in memory.
WE KNEW IT WOULD RAIN.
We knew it would rain, for all the morn
spirit, on slender ropes of mist
Was lowering it's golden buckets down
Into the vapory amethyst
OF marshes and swamps and dismal fens-
Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers,
Dipping the Jewels out of the sea,
To sprinkle them over the land IN showers
We knew it would rain for the poplars show
The white of their leaves-the amber grain
Shrinks in the wind and the lighting now
Is tangled in tremulous skeins OF ram.
Then there is q poem by David Barker
entitled early Recollections, y and which
had been published in part in the Free
Mason's Monthly Magazine, Boston, May,
1852. And here is little verse entitled
FASHION, 1867.
Time was when girls their bonnets wore
Projecting half yard before;
When beauty thus was hidden deep,
Twas something cen to get peep.
But now-O woman's tickle mind.
They wear their bonnets all behind
While men their features hide with hair
The ladies go with faces bare,
And fancy all admire who stare!
As English women's bare-faced age.
The Boston Journal of that period COM
mended the new style of bonnet, compar-
ing it with the "odious poke bonnet used
five and twenty years ago, which formed
a line of decentralization around beWltch-
ing features which the most ardent and
presumptuous admirer of beauty would
hardly attempt to pass-when even
ITO undertake the pleasing process
REQUIRED an elephants probocls.
Of course there is much in this old book
that is of no special value, but there is so
much that has proved useful that we be-
leve ifsa child were given scissors, paste,
a bundle of newspapers and a scrap book,
something of permanent value would be
found in that book after the lapse OF
years MANY times since the big schoon-
ers came into existence have we read
with interest, and several times quoted
from, an editorial in a Maine paper on
''Fore- Alters" in which it is said OF
first conceived of putting such sails on a
large sea-going craft, say over 100 tons,
and from that up to 300 and 500 tons, as
has been the rage within few years,
ought to be first presented with an India
Rubber Medal, and then-compelled to
iibe over one of the largest of the main
booms in a sou wester while coming
through the South Channel, and then
help reef the foresail while the sea was
tumbling over the vessels waist"' The
writer concludes that ''for beauty anc
convenience in vessel between 200 anc
300 tons nothing can surpass the barque;
AS to beauty we quite agree with the
writer, who no doubt went aloft before
the seven-master Thomas w. Lawson
and the big six-masters were set afioat.
There are more good things in this ole
scrap book, but we must leave them there
for the present.
Maine,s Valuation Increased $40 600 600