not always go together. One r quires a deep, reflective vein; the other a reflection like a mirror. Lincoln did not have that quickness which is indispensable to true wit, and yet no man was ever possessed of a deeper sense of humor.

Even as a young man he was known as a story teller, and this reputation grew as he grew until his hearers were not confined to an Il inois circuit, but embraced the great republic. He was the life of the old time law courts and his quaint stories attr cted more attention than his briefs or argu ments. A good story teller, or a man who sees something humorous in the phases of life, is likely to be underestimated by the people at large. They look upon him as a man of trivial mind, as one who weighs lightly the great problems of human affairs, and withhold from hin that measure of confidence which an innocent spirit of humor ought to invite rather than repel. Had the wise men of the East been fully aware of Lincoln's exceeding love of story telling, he might never have been president. The Western people are nearer nature than we are, and Lincoln was their idol.

Charles Sumner was completely disgusted when Lincoln, after listening to a long talk from the distinguished senator, made no ieply, but slowly unfolding himselt, proposed to measure heights. Sumner had neither wit, humor, nor imagination, and Lincoln was an enigma to him. So with Stanton. On the evening of that eventful election day in November, 1864, when all the power of the War and the other departments had been employed to secure his reëlection, Lincoln and Stanton were eagerly reading the returns as sent to them by private wire. The suspense was terrible, for the fate of the country seemed to be wavering in the balance. Darin a luil in the clicking, Lincoln pulled out a yellow pamphlet from his pocket nd began reading extracts from Petroleum V. Nasby. He read and chuckled, only pausing now and then to con a return. Th's enraged Stanton beyond measure, and calling one of his assistants aside the secretary gave expression to his wrath. The idea that a man whose country's safety was at issue could s t calmly by an read such balderdash was to him simply daninable.

When Lord Lyons, the British minister, called on Lincoln, and presented him with an autograph letter from the Queen, announcing the marriage of the Prince of Wales, and added that whatever response the president might make would be immediately sent to her majesty, Mr. Lincoln instan ly replied to the old bachelor minister, "Lyons, go thon and do likewise."

Dignity Lincoln had none, and he never pretended that he had. He was tall, angular, and awk. ward, his hands and feet were large, his face was bony and time had made furrows all over it. Nature made him like a scarecrow and endowed him like a god At times Lincoln told stories just as men indulge in any pastime. He was a temperate man, and the cup had no attractions for him. He was not ar ading man, and higher literature afforded him no solace. His recreation was in humor. Even in the dark days of the war he foud time to indulge i story telling, and no one was more welcome to his evenings than the man of racy tongue. I reco lect ha thel te Senator Nesmith of Oregon, him-elf a wit and humorist of the first order, showed me a slip of paper on which was written: "Dear Nesmith, come around to-night with your latest. A. Lincoln."

These men spent hours together, not in discussing state craft or planning policies, but in unrestrained good fel owship, for these stories were Lincoln's great safeguards in moments of mental depression. These stories served him many a good turn in his presidential office, and by fitting some ludicrous story to the occasion he saved himself and his administration from do wnright embarrasment. As a soft answer turneth away wrath, so would one or his funny stories. He had a great forte in makin analogies. When Grant showed him the Dutch Gap cana', and explained how an explosion had thrown the earth back and filled up a part already completed, he turned to Grant and said: "This reminds me of a blacksmith out in

Illinois. One day he took a piece of soft iron, and starting up a fire began to heat it. When he got it hot he began to hammer it, thinking he would make it into an agricultural implement. But atter pounding away he found that the iron would not hold out. Then he put it back in the forge, heated it, and began hammering it with the inten tion of making a claw hammer. But he came to the conclusion that there was more iron than he needed. Again he heated it and thought he would make an axe. After hammering and welding it into shape he concluded there was not enough of the iron left to make an axe that would be of any use. He was disgusted at his repeated attempts, besides being weary. So he filled up his torge full of coal and worked up a tremendous blast, bringing the iron to a white heat. Then with his tongs he lifted it from the bed of coals and plunging it into a tub of water, exclaimed, "There, by gosh; if I can't make anything else of you I can make a fizzle anyhow.'"

Just after he was nominated in 1860, a prominent Mason called on him at Springfield and said: "Of course you expect all the Masons to vote against you, Mr. Lincoln !"

"No, why?"

"Because all the other presidential candidates are Masons."

"Bless me !" exclaimed old Abe, "is that so?" "Certainly," said the visitor. "Bell has taken all the degrees, and is a member of the Grand Lodge of tennessee; Breckenridge is an officer of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, and Douglaswhy he is gran l'orator of the Grand. odge of Illinoi-right here under your nose.

Mr. Lincoln turned round in his chair, laid his legs across the to of the table, laughed, rubbed his face, stuck his fingers through his hair, and said: "John, you have been down in Sangamon county a good deal yourself."

"Well, yes," a mitted the visitor, "sorry to say I have frequented that locality"

"I am reminded," said Mr. Lincoln, "of an incident that occurred there. A woman who was a real hard case was a witness, and the lawyer, bound to get even, asked her. 'Are you a virtuous woman, madam ?' She was slightly surprised and said, "That, sir, is a very hard question to ask a lady who is a witness before a public court. He rose and repeated the question sternly She still evaded it. but when he persisted, she finally an swered This much I will say-that I bave a great respect for the institution.'""

Once a war governor went to him in a towering passion; he literally bad blood in his eye. His interview with Stanton had b en stormy, and he betook himself to the president. A few days after one of the officials who had witnessed the scene asked Mr. Lincoln how he had managed the irate governor. "Well," said the president, laughing, do you know how the Illinois farmer managed the log that lay in the middle of his field? It was too big to haul out, too knotty to split, and too wet and soggy to burn. Well I will tell you how he got rid of it. He ploughed round it. I ploughed round the governor, but it took three mortal hours to do it and I was afraid every minute he would see what I was at."

At the time of Gen. Cameron's retirement from the cabinet the Republican senators thought a reconstruction of the entire cabinet was advisable, therefore, a committee waited on the presi 'ent and requested him to make the change. Lincoln listened patiently and then said the request reminded him of a story. A farmer was much troubled by skunks They annoyed him exceedingly. Finally he got out his old shot-gun and laid in wait for the midnight assas-ins. His wife listened intently for the report of the gun. At last it cracked on the still night. The man came in, and his wife asked him what luck he had. "Well," said the old man, "I hid behind a woodpile, and soon seven skunk came along. I blazed away and killed one, but he ra sed such a fearful smell that I concluded it was best to let the other six go!" The dig1ified senators saw the point and took their departure.

Lincoln could not bear to put his signature to

death warrants, and his reprieves and pardons furnish a sublime example such as the world had never known. Once Judge Holt, the advocate general, presented a most flagrant case of desertion and insisted that the culprit be shot. The man had thrown down his gun and run away during battle. Extenuating circumstances there were none. The sentence of the court was death. Lincoln ran his fingers through his hair and said, "Well, Judge, I guess I must put this with my le cases." "Leg cases!" replied Judge Holt. "What do you mean by leg cases?" "Why, do you see those papers crowded into those pigeon-holes? They are the cases you call by that long title "Cowardice in the face of the enemy,' but I call them leg cases. Now I'll put it to you and let you decide for yourself. If God Almighty gives a man a cowardly pair of legs how can he help running away with them."

Lincoln was always quaint in whatever he did. He could not help it. Nothing was ever done for effect. His peculiarities were not studied, they were inborn and irrepressible.

In September, 1862, a delegation of Chicago clergymen called on him to urge the emancipation proclamation. He heard them patiently, an 1 as they were leaving the White House one of them felt it to be his duty to make an appeal to the president's conscience. "I am compelled to say, Mr. Lincoln, that the Divine Master has instructed me to command you, sir, to open the doors of bondage that the slaves may go free." The president at once replied; "It may be as you say, sir, but is it not strange that the only channel though which the Divine Master could send this message was by that roundabout route by that awfully wicked city of Chicago ?"

When the Rebels raided a small detachment of our army, they captured a general and twelve army mules. On hearing of it, Lincoln instantly replied: "How unfortunate! I can fill his place in five minutes, but those mules cost us two hundred dollars apiece."

Gen. Frye once found on looking over applications for offices in the army papers dotted with notes and comments in the president's handwriting, and among others, this characteristic one: "On this day Mrs. called upon me. She is the wife of Major - -, of the regular army. She wants her husband made brigadier general She is a saucy little woman, and I think she will torment me until I do it. A. L."

Now could there be anything more delicious than this?

Once when told that a Union man had been con demned to die, the choice being left to him to be hung or shot, a smile lighted up his sad features, and he said the situation reminded him of a colored Methodist camp-meeting. There was a brother who responded, "Amen! Bless the Lord!" in a loud voice. The preacher was sweeping the sin ners on both sides into the devil's net. He had drawn a picture of eternal damnation, without a saving clause, when the unctuous brother leaped up and yelled out, "Bless the Lord! dis nigger

takes to the woods!"

As in the present era of reform and honesty, Mr. Lincoln, like Mr Cleveland, was beset with officeseekers. They fairly made him sick. As be lay in the White House prostrated by an attack of small pox, he said to his attend ants, "Tell all the office-seekers to come at once, for now I have something I can give to all of them."

The relations between Lincoln and Stanton were very close, and sometimes exceedingly comical.

Once a committee, having for its object the exchange of Eastern and Western men, repaired to the war secretary with the president's order for such a change.

Stanton stamped and emphatically said, "No." "But we have the president's order," said the chairman.

"Did Lincoln give you an order of that kind ?" "He did, sir.'

"Then he is a damned fool," said the war secretary.

"Do you mean to say that the president is a damned fool." asked the bewildered spokesman. "Yes, sir, if he gave you such an crder as that." The committee returned to the president and related the scene.

"Did Stanton say I was a damned fool," asked Lincoln.

"He did sir," and he repeated it.

After a moment's pause, the president said: "If Stanton said I was a damned fool, then I must be one, for he is nearly always right and generally says what he means. I will step over and see him."

Lincoln took a memorandum of new stories, and once he stopped the long line at a White House reception in order that he might get the point of a story which he had forgotten. He was not frivolous, he was divinely thoughtful, but he had an unconscious humor which gushed forth at all times and under all circumstances. Nero fi idled while Rome was burning. Lincoln told funny st ries when black clouds of disaster hung over the nation. The Roman was drunk with wine and wid with passion; the American was hopeful, calm. The emperor was cruel, vindictive, and debauched; the presi lent was merciful, wise, and pure. Nero was the incarnation of splendid iniquity; Lincoln was the living interpretation of the sermon on the

mount.

SPEECH OF HON. CHARLES H. BURNS.

Mr. Burns's eloquent oration was a superb effort, for which he was afterward warmly congratulated. He spoke as follows:

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE LINCOLN CLUB: The people of the United States are approaching an era in the history of their govern. ment, when every man, and possibly every woman, must become an active working member in some political organization. The questions to be settled are of such gravity, and so vital to the business, social condition, and safety of the repub ic, that all cit zens will be compelled to take a part in their solution. It may be distasteful: it will nevertheless be a necessity.

It is impossible to forecast with precision the consequences of the 1.bor agitation and troubles which now beset the land; but it requires no great discernment to see that a draft is to be made upon the wisdom, intelligence, and virtue of all the people in order to meet and settle these difficulties in a way that shall be just and honorable to all parties. They may not become political questions, but they are matters of the highest importance to the people, and require at their hands the most solemn consideration.

We have the question of high and low tariff, or no tariff at all, of protection to American industry, of finance, of taxation, of pensions, and many other issues which constantly confront the people, and they must be met and controlled by the intelligence of the whole country.

Political parties must meet the saloon question in this country. It cannot be avoided.

If any party chooses to ally itself with the liquor saloon power, it must take the consequences. The inducements to court its assistance at the present time, it must be admitted, are great, if principle, and honor, and love of home and country, are left out of consideration; but sooner or later the hand that seeks a marriage with the mistress who embraces almost every wretch on earth of both high and low degree, will wither as it deserves. The time is coming when the people of this nation will no longer bear with the insolence and havoc of the grog shop.

Three ecades ago the slave power in this land became insolent in its demands, and it wielded an influence that was courted by the Democratic party. It threatened to call the roll of its sla es beneath the shadow of Bunker Hill monument. It enacted a law which turned every foot of the soil of the North into a hunting-ground for fleeing humanity. It sought to establisä itself in neigh

borhoods which had been solemnly dedicated to freedom. It elected presidents, made and unmade courts, controlled Congresses, stifled the consciences of statesmen, gagged the freedom of press and speech, dictated the policy and shaped the acts of the government, and domineered with impudent swagger, like a bloated monarch, over this land which it claimed as its kingdom.

When it was finally met and beaten at the polls by the Republican party, it clutched, in its desperation, at the throat of the nation, and undertook to destroy it, but the assassin who would slay. himself was slain; and the Democratic party, which nursed and encouraged the barbarous system, was relegated to a retirement which lasted for a quarter of a century, and from which it has but recently been acidentally and temporarily called.

The power of the liquor sa'oon is such that it dictates boards of selectmen; it elects aldermen and councilmen and mayors; it organizes societies whose openly avowed purpose is to defeat the law; it disregards the authority of men and the supplications of women; and its influence and sway are getting to be such that the conscience and sense of honor of the nation, which is now asleep, will soon awake and arise, and smite this monster and send it to everlasting perdition, and the party that sustains it will go with it.

These are a few of the issues which await the solution of the American people; and that party which possesses the wisdom and courage to grapple with these great problems, and demand that they shall be settled in a way that shall be useful to the progress of humanity, is the party which in the end will control and direct this governn ent.

The Republican party during the last twenty-five years has been compelled to act upon some of the most critical questions ever presented to the people of any age or country; questions involving national interests of the highest importance, even to the preservation of the Union and the maintenance, credit, and honor of the nation, as well as the entranchisement of one tenth of all the people of the United States; and upon all these great and unprecedented questions it has always espoused the side of freedom and justice. It has carried the nation safely through each and every crisis.

It could not have weathered so many dangerous caps or breasted so many terrific storms bad it not had for pilots some of the noblest and ablest men that our country has produced. In the war, our helm was guided by Andrew, Morton, Seward, Chase, Stanton, Sumner, Garfield, and Lincoln. God bless his memory, at the touch of whose pen the chains of four millions of slaves were broken, never to be reforged; and Sherman, who, thank God, still lives; and Grant, whose fame is as imperishable as the light of the stars; and honest John Logan, from whose bier the mourners have bu just gone. This is a list of contemporaneous civil and military leaders, which the nation, in all its history, cannot surpass or match. Their characters and deeds challenge the admiration of mankind, and their memories are embalmed in enduring fame. It has been truly said that "the heroic example of other days is in great part the source of the courage of each generation." In the lives of these splendid leaders our country finds an inspiration which, if heeded, will lead to the highest and grandest national achie ements.

From this galaxy of distinguished Americans we select on this anniversary of his lowly birth that noble and God-crowned man, Abraham Lincoln.

To-night and here we humbly ass st in gathering up "the scattered shes into history's golden urn." We pay an earnest tribute to the good citizen, the painstaking and conscientious lawyer, the wise, patriotic, and far-seeing statesman, the matchless political leader, the martyred president, and the uncompromising friend of humanity. A man who, in intellectual power and strength, was the peer of the ablest of his countrymen, and whose heart was larger than his brain. His was one of

the few great lives which had an humble begin ning, a slow development, a tremendous influence and import, and a tragic ending before it was fully appreciated by his countrymen. From the moment the good man was stricken down, his fame began to live and grow. The greatness of his mind, the goodness of his heart, the far-reaching significance and sublimity of his work, are now recognized the world over. All alike concede the sincerity, purity, goodness, and beauty of his character; and over his whole life there "arches a bow of unquestioned integrity."

It cannot be said of Mr. Lincoln, as Victor Hugo extravagantly wrote of Napoleon, "He was everything. He was complete: he made history, and he wrote it." But it can be said that he is a complete a figure as the present century has produced, and that he was the conspicuous and successful leader in a series of civil, political, and military events which constitute the most remarkable crisis and the most important epoch in the history of modern times. He presided over the nation at a time when treason was doing its deadliest work; when the Union was in the deepest peril; when the destinies of forty millions of living souls, as well as countless g nerations then unborn, stood trembling in the balance; and it is the highest encomium to pronounce on this consecrated man that the nation, under his loving and patriotic guidance, was triumphant over every foe, and came ou from its ordeal of treason and civil war with the union of these states reaffirmed upon a basis as solid as

the eternal bills.

When Wendell Phillips died, Joseph Cook eloquently said of him, "There lies dead on his shield in yonder street an unsullie soldier of unpopular reform, a sp tlessly disinterested champion of the oppressed, the foremost orator of the Englishspeaking world in recent years, the largest and latest, let us ho e not the last, of the Puritans. A servant of the Most High God, a man on the altar of whose heart the coals of fire were kindled by a breath from the Divine justice and tenderness, Wendell Phillips has gone doubtless to an incalculably great reward. He is with Garrison and Sumner and Lincoln now; he has met Wilberforce and Clarkson; he is in the company of Aristides and Scipio and the Roman Gracchi, and of all the past martyrs who in every age have laid down their lives that the darkness of the ages might be a li tle lightened." And so it can be said of Abraham Lincoln: he is among the martyrs "who have laid down their lives that the darkness of the ages might be a little lightened." Whether he is viewed as the head of the greatest political party known to history, or as commander-in-chief of the bravest and most intelligent army of soldiers that was ever marshalled on the face of the earth; or as president of the most successful Republic that has ever adorned the family of nations, he an-wers all the tests of patriotism, wise statesmanship, high citizenship, and noble manhood.

All honor, then, to the imperishable name of Abraham Lincoln. In life a patriot, in death a martyr, in eternity the companion of the good of all ages, his example is the beritage of his country.

He lives; the patriot lives no more to die;
And while dim rolling centuries hasten by,
He still shall live, the man of thought sublime,
Down to the latest hour of coming time.

John J. Bell of Exeter was called upon as the In the absence of Hon. Henry Robinson, closing speaker, and responded with a brief but eloquent tribute to the achievements of the Republican party, and a statement of the duties before it. It was 1:15 a. m. when the company left the tables.

tain Stephen Gerrish was a pioneer in Boscawen. His oldest son, Colonel Henry Gerrish, was a veteran of the Revolution. His third son, Major Enoch Gerrish, born June 23, 1750, was the grandfather of our senatorelect, and died May 1, 1821. Isaac Gerrish was born Nov. 27, 1782, and was an honored citizen of Boscawen. Senator Gerrish obtained his education at the academies in Boscawen, Franklin, and Meriden. At the age of twenty years he inherited his father's estate, and for twenty years he cultivated one of the largest farms in Merrimack county. He was colonel of the Twenty-First Regiment New Hampshire militia. After the sale of his farm in 1865, he settled in Concord, where he has been called to represent his ward in the legislature (1881-'82). He married, May 23, 1854, Miranda O., daughter of Joseph S. and Harriet N. Lawrence. Their children are Frank L. Gerrish, a farmer of Boscawen, and Miss Lizzie M. Gerrish, who resides with her parents.

OLIVER DENNETT SAWYER, Republican senator from the Amherst district, is a resident of Weare, where he has lived since he was four years of age. He is the son of Daniel and Dorcas Hodgdon Sawyer, the former a native of Henniker, and the latter of Weare, and was born in Portland, Maine, Nov. 19, 1839, during the temporary residence of his parents in that city. His parents belonged to the Society of Friends, and young Sawyer was brought up in the faith. He is proud of his descent, in the eighth generation, from William Sawyer, who emigrated from England to America in 1632, and commenced pio

neer life in Newbury, now Newburyport, Massachusetts. Oliver received his education in New London, and later at the Friends' school at Providence, Rhode Island. His family, on both sides, were old-fashioned, anti-slavery Quakers, and in early life he was imbued with abolition principles. He was educated to feel keenly the inhumanity and cruelty of human slavery, and long before his majority was working for the success of the anti-slavery cause. He has ever been a total abstainer from all alcoholic drinks, and a firm friend to all measures intended to suppress this evil in our land. A working man all his life, in full sympathy with the working men and women of our country, the cry of distress has never found a deaf ear, but has reached a sympathetic listener in him, as a large number of poor people in his vicinity can testify. Always working and giving freely to every project for the improvement of the people, he is foremost in all good works. He was appointed post-master in 1869, and held that office until removed as an offensive partisan in 1885. He was a delegate from Weare to the last Constitutional Convention. His father started the first store in North Weare, and after he left school Mr. Sawyer was associated with him in business, until the former's death in 1885. Since then he has carried on the business, now established for nearly half a century, and is known as a substantial business man, who received his full party vote in the last election.

Hon. FRANKLIN WORCESTER, senator-elect from the Peterborough district, is the son of John Newton and Sarah (Holden) Worcester, of Hollis,