Year: 1871

an article in the New York Tribune, on
the death of President Lincoln's son,
"Tad :"


"Most of those who read the dispatch
announcing the death of Thomas Todd
Lincoln, will never think of the we'll
grown young gentleman who died ON
Saturday at Chicago. The name Of
"Tad"-a pet name given himself with
ais first stammering utterances and
adopted by his fond parents and the
world-recalls the trickey little spright
who gave to the sad and solemn White
House of the great war the only comic
relief it knew. The years that have fol-
lowed, spent in study and travel, pro-
duced an utterly different person. The
Tad Lincoln of our history ceased to ex-
ist long ago. The modest and cordial
young fellow who passed through New
York few weeks ago with his mother
will never be known outside the circle of
his mourning friends. But "little Tad
will be remembered as long as any live
who bore personal share in the great
movements whose center for four years
was at Washington.


He was so full of life and vigor,-
bubbling over with life and spirits, that
he kept the house alive with his pranks
and his fantastic enterprises. He was
always a chartered libertine," and af-
ter the death of his brother Willie, a
prematurely serious and studious child,
and the departure of Robert for College,
he installed himself as the absolute ty-
| rant of the Executive Mansion. He was
idolized by both his father and mother,
petted and INDUCED by his teachers,
and fawned upon and caressed by that
horde of office-seekers which infested the
ante-rooms of the White House.


Early in the morning you could hear
his shrill pipe resound through the edreary
corridors of the Executive residence.
The day passed in rapid succession Of
plots and commotions, and when the
President laid down his weary pen to-
ward midnight, he generally found bis
infant goblin asleep under his table, or
roasting his curly head by the open fire.
place; and the tall chief would pick up
the child and trudge off to bed with the
drowsy burden on his shoulder, STOPPING
under the doors and lodging the chan
deliers.


He treated fatterers and office-seekers
with curious GOODNESS and contempt,
but he often espoused the cause of some
poor widow or tattered soldier, whom he
| found waiting in the ante-rooms. and it
was most amusing to see the hearty little
fellow dragging his shabby proteges into
the Executive presence, ordering the
ushers out of the way, and demanding
immediate action from headquarters.
The President rarely refused grace OF
this kind, and the demands were not so
| frequent as to loose the charm of novel
ty.


One of the tricks into which his idle
ness and his enterprise together drove
him, was the occasion of much laughter
to the judicious, and much horror to the
respectable in Washington. He invest.
ed, one morning, all his pocket money in
buying the stock in trade OF an old wo.
man who sold gingerbread near the Treas
ury. He made the Government carpen.
ters give him board and some trestles,
which he set up in the imposing porte
| cochere of the White House, and on this
rude counter displayed his wares. Eve
ry office-seeker who entered the house
that morning bought toothsome morsel
of the keen little merchant, and when
an hour after the opening of the booth
a member of the household discovered
the young pastryman the admired Gen.
ter of groop of grinning servants and
toadies, he had filled his hat and pocket
with currency, the spoil of the Amer
lean public. The juvenile operator
made lively work of his ill-gotten grains,
however, and before night was penniless
again.


He came back a short time ago, great
ly improved by his short residence abroad
but always the sane cordial, frank,
warm hearted boy. In his loss the al
ready fearfully bereaved family will suf-
fer deep afIiiction. aud the world, which
never did and never will know him, will
not withhold tribute Of regret for the
child whose gayety and affection cheered
more than anything else the worn and
weary heart of the great President
through the toilsome years of the war.


An ingenious mode of transacting the
duelling business suggested by an En-
glish novelist is, for the combatants to
swallow poison and then toss up for an