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is covered by a lace head-dress like a kerchief, which hangs to the shoulders on either side. The gown is very plain in its pattern, and is ornamented only by a lace ruffle about the neck. One foot is crossed over the other. The head is slightly turned toward the right, and is remarkably well poised upon a strong, firmly-modelled neck.

designed by John Adams, in 1782, from a suggestion of Sir John Prestwich, an English antiquary. The obverse is too well known to call for description. It shows the spread eagle (the emblem of strength) bearing upon its breast an escutcheon with thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, like the national flag. In its right talon is the olive branch, and in its left the thirteen arrows. In its beak is a ribbon with the motto, E pluribus unum. Over the head of the eagle is a golden light

MEMORIAL TABLET TO GARFIELD. breaking through a cloud surrounding thirteen

VISITORS to Elberon this summer will find among the places of interest, not only the cosey Francklyn cottage, from which President Garfield "passed to where beyond these voices there is peace," but they will have pointed out to them the quaint little Queen Anne church, across the drive, St. James's Chapel, where prayers were repeatedly offered last summer for the sufferer's recovery, and in which the Bishop of New Jersey preached his funeral sermon. That those who come after may have no opportunity to forget the fame which the place and the chapel have thus gained, a number of ladies, many of them from this city, who have summer residences at Elberon, decided to have erected a tablet to the memory of the dead President. The order was given about a month ago, and it is expected that the memorial will be in place before the season opens. The tablet is to be of polished brass, engraved and richly ornamented in colored enamel. It will be fifty-six inches long and twenty-three inches wide, and will occupy the wall-space on the south of the chancel, facing the congregation.

The design is a free treatment of the Gothic. There are conventionalized columns on either side, surmounted by a trefoiled arched canopy, surrounded by intricate tracery. Running almost the entire length of the tablet is the sword of the General, about the hilt of which is twined a laurel-wreath. In the spaces on either side of the arch are medallions, bearing representations of the obverse and reverse of the great seal of the United States,

stars, forming a constellation on a blue field. The reverse of the seal is not so common. The principal feature is an unfinished pyramid, emblematic of the unfinished Republic, the building of which is still going on. In the zenith is an All-Seeing eye, surrounded by light, and over the eye the words, Annuit cœptis. On the base of the pyramid, in Roman numerals, is the date, 1776, and below this the motto, Novus ordo seclorum. Midway down the tablet, one on each side of the sword-blade, are two heraldic shields, one bearing a correct facsimile of the arms of the State of Ohio, and the other of the arms of the State of New Jersey. These were furnished by the Governors of the respective States, and are therefore official. The lower portion of the tablet is devoted to the inscription, which is in Old English text, of red and black enamel, and reads as follows,

To the memory of
JAMES A. GARFIELD,
President of the United States.
Shot at Washington, July 2, 1881.
Died at Elberon, Sept. 19, 1881.

The text from which Bishop Scarborough preached the memorable funeral sermon, runs about the two sides,

"Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel?". - 2 Samuel iii. 38.

The design was adapted by Mr. John Henry Buck, the New York agent for the manufacturers, Cox, Sons, Buckley, and Co, of London, and the tablet was ordered through the New York agency, 13, Bible House.

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A RHYMED yarn, which, unhappily, is not all a yarn, reaches us from Hawaii. It only hints at the cruelties that are practised by tyrannical shipmasters, some of whom, it is said, will not permit sailors to spend a holiday on shore in far-off climes, except under the surveillance of half-civilized native police, who are paid to club the tars for offences of very slight importance. The correspondent who sends the rhymes says that not long ago an American whaler came in at Hawaii with all the seamen sick with scurvy, and nothing was done for their relief, and the ship sailed away in as bad condition as she came. Another ship lost thirteen of her men, who deserted in consequence of cruelties suffered by them, five of the number swimming to shore, preferring to risk encounter with sharks to longer endurance of the captain's tyranny. As a bit of literary flotsam, the genuine work of a sailor, the ballad is peculiarly interesting.

is:

I, a sailor in a whaler,

Suffered much in every way; So with others, my two brothers, I determined to run away.

Since we started, weary-hearted, From New Bedford, months ago, All our earning, every turning,

Into other hands did go.

Here it

Even skippers, through the shippers, Charged us twice for everything; Thus they sold us, then they told us We were short of everything.

Food was rotten, some forgotten,
So we suffered every day ;
But what vexed us and perplexed us
Was, they gave the good away.

For, wherever there was treasure
To be had, the captain took
Food and gave it, though we craved it ;
"Used," he entered in the book.

If we muttered, or but uttered Just a word that seemed to be Like complaining, or for aiming For our rights and liberty, —

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LINCOLN AND BUTLER.

[From Schuyler Colfax's Lecture.]

LINCOLN'S well-known disposition to be merciful, which prevented his signing the death-warrants found by courts-martial, was aptly illustrated by several stories, and the fact is stated that it was for this reason Congress so modified the law toward the close of the war, that death-warrants from the courtsmartial could be executed by the mere order of a commanding general in the field.

An instance of this trait was found in the pardon of one of Butler's command. When the condemned man's father called at the White House to beg his son's life, the President had just received a telegram from General Butler, which read,

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THE YEAR WITHOUT A

SUMMER.

[From the Hartford Times.]

WE Continue to receive occasional inquiries concerning the "year in which there was no summer." Some persons appear to have a wrong idea of the time. It was the year 1816. It has been called the " "year without a summer," for there was sharp frost in every month. There are old farmers still living in Connecticut who remember it well. It was known as the "year without a summer." The farmers used to refer to it as "eighteen hundred and starve to death." January was mild, as was also February, with the exception of a few days. The greater part of March was cold and boisterous. April opened warm, but grew colder as it advanced, ending with snow and ice and winter cold. In May, ice formed half an inch thick, buds and flowers were frozen, and corn was killed. Frost, ice, and snow were common in June. Almost every green thing was killed, and the fruit was nearly all destroyed. Snow fell to the depth of three inches in New York and Massachusetts, and ten inches in Maine. July was accompanied with frost and ice. On the fifth, ice was formed of the thickness of window-glass in New York, in New England, and in Pennsylvania, and corn was nearly all destroyed in certain sections. August, ice formed half an inch thick. A cold northerly wind prevailed all summer. Corn was so frozen that a great deal was cut down and dried for fodder. Very little ripened in New England, or even here in Connecticut, and scarcely any in the Middle States. Farmers were obliged to pay four or five dollars a bushel for corn of 1815 for seed for the next spring's planting. The first two weeks of September were mild, and the rest of the month was cold, with frost, and ice formed a quarter of an inch thick. October was more than usually cold, with frost and ice. November was cold and blustering, with snow enough for good sleighing. December was quite mild and comfortable.

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You can write, can you not?"

"Yes," was the reply.

"Then you can put words together?” "Yes, sir."

"Then," said the master, "you may take your slate and go behind the school-house, and there you can find something to write about, and then you can tell what it is, what it is used for, and what is to be done with it, and that will be a composition."

Henry took his slate and went out. He went behind Mr. Finney's barn, which chanced to be near, and seeing a fine turnip growing up, he thought he knew what that was, what it was for, and what would be done with it.

Half an hour had been allowed Henry for his first undertaking in writing composi

tions. In half an hour he carried in his work, all accomplished, and the master is said to have been affected almost to tears when he saw what little Henry had done in the short time.

MR. FINNEY'S TURNIP.

Mr. Finney had a turnip,
And it grew, and it grew,
And it grew behind the barn,
And the turnip did no harm.

And it grew, and it grew,

Till it could grow no taller; Then Mr. Finney took it up And put it in the cellar.

There it lay, there it lay,

Till it began to rot, When his daughter Susie washed it, And she put it in the pot.

Then she boiled it, and boiled it, As long as she was able; Then his daughter Lizzie took it, And she put it on the table.

Mr. Finney and his wife

Both sat down to sup, And they ate, and they ate, Until they ate the turnip up.

LONGFELLOW'S LAST AFTERNOON WITH CHILDREN.

[From St. Nicholas.]

"He is dead, the sweet musician!
He the sweetest of all singers!
He has gone from us forever:
He has moved a little nearer
To the Master of all music,
To the Master of all singing."

IN the early part of March, some lads belonging to the Dwight School, Boston, wished to visit Professor Longfellow, with whose poems they were becoming familiar.

"Let us write to him," said one of the boys, "and ask his permission to call on him some holiday afternoon."

They consulted their teacher, who favored the plan, and the following note was sent to the poet:

"HENRY W. LONGFELLOW: Dear Sir, Would it be agreeable to you to receive a call from four boys of the Dwight School?" Four names were signed to the note.

In a few days the following answer was returned,

"Mr. Longfellow would be pleased to meet the boys of the Dwight School on Saturday afternoon.”

The boys were delighted. They procured a choice bouquet of flowers to give to the poet, and, on Saturday afternoon, March 18, went to Cambridge, and made the last visit to Longfellow that he ever received. Soon after they left him, he walked on the piazza of the ancient house, and being there exposed to the raw March winds, he contracted the sudden illness that ended his life.

On their way to Cambridge, the boys left Boston by the Charles River Bridge, over which incessantly day and night a procession | of footsteps goes and returns, as restless as the tide that ebbs and flows among the wooden piers, and there makes its ceaseless

murmur.

A horse-car ride of half an hour took the boys past Harvard College, where the poet had spent many happy years as a professor, to his home, the mansion that Washington made famous in history as his headquarters. It resembles the one described in "The Old Clock on the Stairs."

This poem was suggested by the French words, Toujours! jamais! Jamais! toujours!

In that house the "Psalm of Life was written. This poem, which to-day is known and admired wherever the English language is spoken, was at first not intended for publication, but was merely an expression of the poet's own views and purposes.

Longfellow once told the writer of this article the story of the composition of this

poem, and added the following pleasing incident:

"As I was returning from my visit to the Queen in London, a laborer came up to my carriage and extended his hand : 'I wish,' he said, 'to shake hands with the author of the "Psalm of Life!" Few incidents of my life have been more pleasing. That was a compliment I could appreciate!"

The poet received the boys most cordially and graciously, accepted their present of flowers, and expressed his pleasure in it. He then showed them the historic rooms, and the articles associated with Washington's residence there. He was accustomed to exhibit to older visitors a piece of Dante's coffin, Coleridge's inkstand, and Thomas Moore's waste-paper basket.

The old poet, crowned with his white hair, chatted pleasantly a while with the four boys, whose faces wore the beauty and inquisitive intelligence of the years that had vanished from him forever.

One of the lads, a Master Lane, then asked him a question which must have revived tender memories. "In your poem on the River Charles," he said, "there is a stanza beginning in some books with the line, 'Four long years of mingled feeling.' In other books it begins with, For long years with mingled feeling.' Will you please tell me which is right?

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"Four long years,'" answered the poet, thoughtfully.

"Is that the River Charles?" asked one or the boys, pointing outside.

The poet looked out on the flowing stream. It was almost the last time that he gazed upon it, perhaps the last time that his attention was directed to it. "Yes," said he, mournfully, in answer; "that is the Charles."

The poet bade the lads an affectionate farewell, and for the last time he saw the forms of children depart from his door. He gave them his autograph, and copies of the poem he had written for the children of Cambridge after they had presented to him a chair made from a tree that stood near the shop of the Village Blacksmith, whose honest

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