Life — May 17, 1888 — page 7: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

NEW LIGHT ON WASHINGTON. T is melancholy to read in a recent bio- graphy of Washington, that the first President of the Republic, and foremost American, ordered his clothes of a Lon- don tailor. It also appears from his own confession—and we are grieved that Rev. Edward Everett Hale did not see fit to ex- punge the tell-tale paragraph—that the Father of his country bought lottery tickets. In 1779, writing from his camp at Middle- brook to a quartermaster at Philadelphia, he besought the latter to stir about and see if any of the tickets he enclosed ‘‘had come up prizes.” In addition to this Washington distilled whiskey, exchanged it for corn, and cocked his hat. Indeed, in his sporting days his hat was seldom set squarely on his head, but worn on one side with a rakish air. Mr. Hale adds to this list of enormities the authenticated fact that the President drank bumpers of peach brandy, and that at the close of the war his bill of personal ex- penses was $74,485. Now, the exact, proportion of the latter sum expended by the General on his ward- robe and personal adornment cannot be ac- curately determined. But Washington (as a letter to Charles Lawrence, presumably the Poole of those days, abundantly attests), found fault with his London tailor; and probably had as-many gold-embroidered suits in his cabinet as there are leaves in a AN APT PUPIL. family almanac. Tigellius, the Roman buck, Ambitious Mamma : EpitH, 1 NOTICED LAST NIGHT THAT MR. DE RICH PAID YOU CON- whom the reader instantly recalls as the SIDERABLE ATTENTION—I HOPE YOU SHOWED HIM A PROPER AMOUNT OF CIVILITY. butt of Horace’s biting satire, could not have Ingenuous debutante: OW YES, MaMMA,I pip! I’M SURE HE KNOWS HE CAN HAVE ij ME FOR THE ASKING. been more gorgeously arrayed. It is not known whether George, imitating the English fops of that decade, employed four valets to sprinkle him with scented powder, while a fifth decorated his cue from behind, or whether he was as expert in fold- ing a neckcloth as Beau Brummel, The Father of his Country could not possibly have foregone any luxury of the toilet for the sake of economy. We may be sure, however, he did not play draw-poker, or bet on horse-races, If the contrary were true, would not the gossips and Paul Prys of that period have informed the world of the fact ? Mrs. Washington was a prudent and economical housewife, but George was a prodigal fellow, it must be confessed. But this was before the days of Jeffersonian simplicity. With such an outfit he must have outvied the most famous beaus of his- tory. It is probable he never took snuff out of the same box twice. If his trunks lay up-piled before us to-day we might behold a towering column higher than Bunker Hill Monument !” Thus, at last, we disentangle a contumacious kink in the puzzling and complicated skein of history. We see the Father of his Country in a new light. EMULATION: It is a pity Mr. Hale does not continue his researches LitTLeE Tommy ROACH, WHO HAS GREAT GENIUS, AND MAY BE A COMIC ARTIST. and reveal to a feverish and waiting world the SOME DAY, HAS BEEN TOLD THAT BE JAMIN WEST MADE A BRUSH FROM THE HAIR unique mysteries of Washington's toilet. OF A CAT'S TAIL, THOMAS SUCCEEDS IN MAKING A BRUSH, BUT THE CAT Has LOST ALL ENTHUSIASM. Harold Van Santvoord.