Fenton sadly meditated, and was about to give it up, when he heard a voice within, saying, "Never too late, Mr. Fenton. You shall have your mackerel. You needn't wait. As soon as I get my clothes on I'll tote you over one."
AN AMAZING PROPHECY
[From the same]
"The hardest strain upon the republic is yet to come," said Mr. Pierrepont. "God only knows how the slavery question is to be settled; but no change in policy will be adopted without a severe struggle. If the South is worsted, it will have the terrible problem of the status of the negroes to solve, and it will be a tumultuous time for a generation. The danger to the North in the event of success, or of defeat either, will arise from its wealth. The accumulations at the commercial centres are to make them enormously rich. Money is a power, and never a quiescent one. Your rich men will put themselves into office, or they will send their paid attorneys to legislate for them. They will so touch the subtle springs of finance as to make every affair of state serve their personal advantage. They will make corruption honorable, and bribery a fine art. It is now a mark of decency and a badge of distinction for a public man to be poor. Everyone knows that a public man can't be rich honestly; but you will live to see congressmen going to the capital carrying travelling-bags, and returning home with wagon loads of trunks, and with stocks and bonds that will enable them to snap their fingers at constituents."
"It is the old story of republics," said Mr. Howard. "They are founded by valor, reared by industry, with frugality and equal laws. Wealth follows, then corruption, then the public conscience is debauched, faith is lost, and justice thrust out. Then the general rottenness is shaken by the coming of a new Cæsar, and an empire is welcomed because liberty had already been lost, and anything is better than anarchy. However, let us hope this is far away."
[STEPHEN C. FOSTER]
Stephen Collins Foster, the celebrated song writer, was born at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, July 4, 1826. At the age of fifteen years he entered Jefferson College, at Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania, but music had set its seal upon him and he soon returned to Pittsburgh to pursue it. The next few years were almost entirely devoted to his musical studies, though he had a living to make. The year of 1842 found Foster clerking in a Cincinnati store; and during this time his first song, Open Thy Lattice, Love, was published at Baltimore. Uncle Ned, and O Susannah! followed fast upon his first effort, and the three launched him upon his career. He relinquished his business cares, and surrendered his life to song. In 1850 Foster married Jane McDowell of Pittsburgh, and they lived at New York City for a short time before settling at Pittsburgh. His Camptown Races, and My Old Kentucky Home, Goodnight, appeared in 1850. It is surely a regrettable fact that the most famous Kentucky song was not written by a Kentucky hand. Foster's only child, Mrs. Marion Foster Welsh, of Pittsburgh, has recently repudiated the ancient tale that is told of the origin of My Old Kentucky Home, but as she declined to furnish the real history of the song, saying she would make it known at the proper time, nothing better than the often repeated story can be told here. Foster was visiting his kinsman, Judge John Rowan, at his home, "Federal Hill," near Bardstown, Kentucky, and on this typical Southern plantation, with its negroes and their cabins, My Old Kentucky Home was written. The story is usually elaborated, but as it has been set aside by the author's daughter, further comment is not worth while. It is enough to know that it was written in Kentucky. Foster went to New York City in 1860, and the same year Old Black Joe appeared. Old Folks at Home, Nelly was a Lady, Nelly Bly, Massa's in the Cold, Cold Ground, Old Dog Tray, Don't Bet Your Money on the Shanghai, We Are Coming, Father Abraham, and dozens of other songs have kept Foster's fame green. His beautiful serenade, Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming, is his highest note in genuine scientific music. Foster died at New York, January 13, 1864, and he was buried in Allegheny cemetery, Pittsburgh. In 1906 the Kentucky home-comers never seemed to tire of My Old Kentucky Home, and a fitting memorial was unveiled at Louisville by Foster's daughter in honor of the song's maker. It is known and sung in the remotest corners of the world. Mr. James Lane Allen's fine tribute to the poet's memory may be found in The Bride of the Mistletoe: