The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-04-10
MARION CRAWFORD
 NOVELIST, IS DEAD
End of American Writers Active Career Came in l:aIy Wh.re lie Was Born.


 Sorrento, April 10.-The municipality today decided to hold official funeral services for Francis Marion Crawford the famous novelist who died at his home here last evening at 2 o'clock The city guards are keeping watch at the Crawford home as mark of hon. or. Business and public buildings are draped in mourning which is in evil dence everywhere.
 The moment the novelist's death was announced the news was telegra phed to ex-President Roosevelt at Port Said MT. Roosevelt and MT. Crawford were warm friends and one of the novelist's last regrets was that he was unable to meet MT. Roosevelt while the latter was in Italy.
 MT. Crawford's death was due to pneumonia. He was born April 2, 1854
 Francis Marion Crawford was born August 2.1s54, at the Baths of Lucca in Northern Italy. He derived his given names from a maternal ancestor, Gen. eral Francis Marion. a heroic figure in the American Revolution His father, Thomas Crawford, Scotch Irish by blood. was a native of the West of Ireland, who was brought to America when child, was apprenticed in boy hood to wood carver and in early manhood went to Rome to study carv- ing in marble. With W. w. Story and Hiram Powers he eventually be- came a member of a famous trio of pioneer American sculptors who made their headquarters in Italy, the two former in Rome. the latter in Florence. Thomas Crawford married Miss Louisa Ward, a sister of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe and of Sam" Ward, well known in his day as a wit and bonvivant.
 At two years of age Marion was sent to be brought up by relatives in Bor- dentown, N. J., but after his fathers death, in 1857, he was taken back to Rome. where he spent his boyhood. Un- til twelve years of age his education was entrusted to a French governess, so that he was brought up with three languages. the French of his nursery, the Italian of his environment and the English of his family circle.
 "A still broader cosmopolitanfsm re- sslted from his subsequent studies at g.. Paul's school in Concord, N. H., q se6-69); at Rome again Qs69); in Eng u en 1S70-74) at Trinity College. Cam b. idge; at Karlsruhe and Heidelberg q s74-76). when he rounded out a course in mathematics and engineering begun at Cambridge and lastly, for the third ti ne. in Rome, where he studied Sans k it under Professor Lignana.
 With this mental equipment and borrowed capital of $500 he landed q Ts in Bombay. full of a passion for
 
 he earned a meagre living as news pnper correspondent while devoting his ST are time to language study. At that ti ne he believed that philology was his true vocation.
 Then a vacancy occurred on the staff of the Indian Herald. in Allahabad, and he accepted the position as editor at $1i0 a month. Eighteen months later i'll health sent MT. Crawford back to the better climatic conditions of his sta1 Italian air soil. He now spent many months in wandering around the Alruzzi. disguised as a native wine dr esser, earning his daily fare or milk sa fish and corn cake by hard physi- ca labor. Family reasons summoned hfin back to the United States in 1881. He made his residence with his aunt, Mis- Howe in Boston, inscribed himself as student at Harvard and there took a diploma in Sanskrit.
 Meanwhile he was eking out a slen- der income by writing pamphlets and reviews on political, social and econ omic questions: Up to 1882 he had new reviewer. The embroyo philologist had allowed himself to imagine that he had no imagination.
 The story has often been told how War6 ,r;m woke ,n hin m.v up ,fss fsem wth his his uncle at the old New York Club, theri facing on Madison square the conversation turned to India, and in particular to certain QlamOno In6r- chant MT. Jacobs whom the younger man had met at Simla.
 The romance of this merchant so frrn- pressed "Uncls Sam" that he insisted on it's being put into writing. Not only that, but brought his recalcitrant nephew to his own home, in Clinton place, over against the Brevoort House, and set him sto work then and there.
 He soon saw his way to a plan, work ed fercely on and completed his TO- ma in iTfU transr,osed his hero's name to "Mr. Isaacs.' and under that title the book was accepted and published by the Macmillans in the fall of 1882. 1t is curious that the burlesque brought out by it's success should have been named MT. Tacobs.''
 While the novel was running through the press Crawford began a second novel. ''Dr. Claudius-" This more care fully composed novel was not primarily the co 1sequence of ''Mr. Jsaacs."
 Marion Crawford had now arrived"