The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1931-11-12

seventeen from HARRISBURG TO daVre
de Grace. This is several in excess
of the number thought to have ex-
listed.
There are refreshing portraits of
Marylanders, native and adopted, such
as Ebenezer Cooke, who seems to have
been a Choptank official poet laureate,
and transient guests of the State,
such as Noah Webster, the lexico-
grapher, who made some entertaining
observations on his neighbors, and
Whistler, visiting his Baltimore
brother and testing the patience of
the engineering craftsmen he knew
by sauntering up to their drawing
boards and drawing pictures over
their carefully stretched paper.
There is a reminder of Luther Mar
tin, whose eminence at the bar was
so great and whose financial collapse
so complete that in 1922 there was a
special tax of SIS levied against every
lawyer in the State, to be applied to
Martins living. Mr.. Wilstach adds,
and who can deny it, that Martin is
the only lawyer on record to get so
tight while engaged in case before
the Supreme Court of the United
States that this august body adjourn
ed long enough to let him sober up.
There are diverting passages which
deal with Maryland gayeties, so num-
erous and continuous as to explain the
actor Bearnard's remark that
surely there never was such per-
Missile corruption of a name as
that by which people pronounced
this region Merriland.
For example, Eddis' account of st.
Tamina's Day MAY y as "the Colon
ial festival peculiar to Maryland, on
which occasion
the natives wear piece of bucks
tail in their hats or some conspic-
uous situation. During the course
of the evening, generally in the
midst of dance, the company are
interruption by the sudden intru-
sion of number of persons habited
like Indians, who rush violently into
the room singing the war song,
giving the whoop, and dancing in
the style of those people; after
which ceremony collection is
made and they retire well satisfied.
If that sort of racket were worked
in Chicago these days, editorial writ
ers would be very bitter about AL
Capone methods. The author does
not trace the relationship between
Maryland's Saint Tamina and the re-
doubtable Chief Tammany, who still
makes Manhattan famous.
One Robert Brooke seems to have
come to America in search of holi-
day at the very outset, for when he
came to Patuxent in 1850 he brought
his pack of hounds with him. Horse
racing was from very early days a
dominant activity of the colony and in
pre- Revolutionary days had estab-
lished a universally which shocked
young Tudor Fithian. That youths
diary remarks that fully third of
the attendance at one Of the races was
in mourning-not over the result OF
the race, either, but lierally over some
family demise, as they wore black
scarfs. We learn that all Affections
are relative in this world of relativi-
ty, for he further remarks that many
who wore black I took notice swore
most desperately"
$3.50
The duels of early days afford Mr..
Wilstach high amusement, notably
those of the blood-drinking Wrights
of Chester river, of whom the most
bloodthirsty would seem to have been
young Master Gustavus Wright, who
at the age of IL, attended his father
in duel with Governor Lloyd. Lloyd
held his fire, and then, taking advan-
tage of the dueling rules of the day,
deliberately walked up close to his
helpless opponent with the grim re-
mark that "Your life, sir, is in my
hands,"
The doughty Wright Senior stood
unflinching but silent, waiting for the
disclosures of very unpromising fu-
ture. His 12-year-old son, weary
of waiting broke the silence. Papa"
he exclaimed, "tell him to shoot and
be damned to him." Fortunately,
Papa did nothing of the sort, nor
! Lloyd either.
Mr.. Wilstach reports this same r.
year-old in one of his own duels later
on, when he would seem to have es-
tablished something very close to an
all-time record for bad craftsmanship.
The duelists were so angry with each
other that they stood only six feet
apart, armed with two pistols each,
which would seem to promise prompt
business for at least one undertaken.
Yet Mr.. Wright hit his opponent in
the hand with one shot and with the
other inflicted a flesh wound in the
side. His opponent missed Wright al
together.