For list of candidates see first page.—Banner. For the candidates themselves—but you needn't trouble yourself to see them; they'll see you.
The French General Failly, who was killed by a Prussian shell, and was afterward murdered by his own soldiers, and subsequently blew out his own brains, is now a prisoner at Mayence—whether dead or alive, the telegraph does not inform us.
The Glasgow Times tells of a man in Georgia, fifty years of age, who never in his life drank a glass of whiskey, smoked a pipe, or courted a woman. The poor wretch has lived utterly in vain. The man who has never sat by a beautiful woman, with a pipe in his mouth, a glass of whiskey in one hand, and the whalebones of her palpitating stays in the other, and "with a lip unused to the cool breath of reason, told his love," has no more idea of Paradise than a deaf and dumb orang-outang has of metaphysics. Even without the pipe and whiskey there is, strictly speaking, nothing disagreeable about it.
The United States navy has but one Admiral Poor. We wish we could say it has but one poor admiral.
[WILLIAM C. WATTS]
William Courtney Watts, author of a single historical novel which is regarded by many as the finest work of its kind yet done by a Kentucky hand, was born at Salem, Kentucky, February 7, 1830. His family has no record of his school days, but he was married to Miss Nannie Ferguson when a young man, and six children were born to them. Watts's early years were spent at Salem and Smithland, Kentucky, but he later went to New Orleans as a clerk in the firm of Givens, Watts and Company, cotton brokers. He shortly afterwards joined the New York branch of this New Orleans house, known as Watts, Crowe and Company, as a partner in the business; and from New York Watts went to Liverpool, England, to represent the firm of W. C. Watts and Company, which was the foreign title for the New Orleans and New York houses. For some years the business was very prosperous, and Watts, of course, shared largely in the firm's success. After the usual congratulatory messages between England and the United States had been exchanged, Watts is said to have sent the first cablegram across the Atlantic. After many years of prosperity, failure overtook the house of Watts, and he returned to New York, setting up in business with a Mr. Slaughter. Some time subsequently he came back to Kentucky, making his home in Smithland, but rheumatism ruined his health, causing lameness, and making him an invalid for the remainder of his life. In Smithland, during days of illness, Watts wrote his splendid story, The Chronicles of a Kentucky Settlement (New York, 1897). This novel of early Kentucky life is one of the most charming and delightful tales ever told by an American author, although founded upon fact and, in a sense, twice-told. The Chronicles is the only book Watts wrote, and he has come down to posterity with this single story in his feeble hand. The preface, signed on the sixty-seventh anniversary of his birth, was done but ten months before his death, which occurred at Smithland, Kentucky December 27, 1897. He is buried in the cemetery of the little Kentucky town over which he cast the glamour of romance, almost unknown to its citizen of this day, and still unappreciated and unheralded by Kentuckians. His Chronicles is known only to the student and collector, as it was never properly put before the public, though published by a powerful New York firm. His family knows little of his life and is quite careless of his fame. In years to come the Chronicles may take high rank among the finest series of historical pictures ever penned of a single Southern settlement, and then William Courtney Watts will come into his very own.
Bibliography. The Courier-Journal (December 28, 1897); letter from Watts's daughter to the author.
A WEDDING AND A DANCE[15]