The exhibition was open to the public for six weeks with a table à la carte in the dining-room. The net profit was close on to seventy-five dollars.
And after all this work, after obtaining from them all these ducats, what did the centennial magnates say to the ladies?
“Ladies,” said they, “we have taken your money; we have urged you to labor; we have induced you, in the person of our special partner, to travel to sister cities to persuade the daughters of our land to make a proper exhibition of their importance and standing in this home of equal rights; but, ah, unfortunately, we shall not be able to allow you any space in our buildings; the old women of China, the aged females of Timbuctoo claim it, and if you want to display that standing and importance we have mentioned, why—ah—here are plans for a building; take them, get up a side show for yourselves, pay for it yourselves, and be—happy.”
CHAPTER III.
“THE COOKS.” ... Who fed the flames.
Our record would be incomplete if we failed to insert a few brief biographical sketches of some of the personages prominently connected with the conduct of the Centennial celebration. We regret being obliged to limit the list to a very few of the many deserving of the honor. The facts which we relate in regard to them, have been industriously gathered from many sources probably unknown even to the parties themselves. Should we succeed in awakening one soul to pure aspiring action—should we be the means of placing one pair of feet into those “footprints on the sands of time” which lead to honored greatness—our labor has not been in vain.
GENERAL JOSEPH NAPOLEON HAWLEY,
the President of the Centennial Commission, was born principally in the State of Rhode Island, but grew so rapidly that his parents soon found it necessary to have him hauled over entirely into Connecticut. Here he flourished and grew fat among the healthy wooden nutmeg groves. He early displayed unmistakable evidences of genius. At the age of seven, he invented a tin lightning rod, and a schoolboy’s improved blowpipe of the same material. For this latter, his teachers passed him a vote of thanks through the medium of a ruler, and graduated him from the scholastic establishment. Shortly afterwards he originated the business of manufacturing paper shell almonds, but sold out advantageously to a near-sighted relative and entered the Artillery school at Brienne, from whence he soon meandered to the military academy at Paris. He instituted the “legion of honor,” won the battles of Marengo, Jena, Austerlitz, Eylau, Wagram, and some few others, and then retired to the monastery at St. Helena. Here he took the veil and several other articles, and leaving, one cloudy night, worked his passage to London. At this metropolis he mixed freely with the heads of the nobility, opening a hat store and being appointed “hatter extraordinary” to the Queen. He pined, however, for the breezes of his native land, and when Columbia called upon her sons to lend a hand to the Centennial structure, he returned to America and was elected President of the commission.
His bravery and prowess are equalled only by his genial nature and the style of his moustache and imperial. Of him the poet Horace (Greeley) has said,
“Though always ready to smile with a friend,
He never was known to re-treat.”