Life — February 14, 1889 — page 9: what you’re looking at

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

FERDINAND DE LESSEPS. F Ferdinand de Lesseps had been a religious man, if he had based his career upon the teachings of the Holy Scriptures and shuffled off this mortal coil at the age of threescore and ten—as all consistent Christians, of course, do— he would have gone down to posterity in a more enviable light than he promises to at present. But de Lesseps thought that he knew more than the Wise Man, and he refused to get off the earth when his time was up; and, as the Psalmist predicted, if, by reason of strength, the years of a man’s life are fourscore, yet is his strength labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away—what- ever that may mean. M. de Lesseps’s strength since three- score and ten has been labor and sorrow to him, At the age when he should have ceased to exist he was a popular man in France, his name was often in the newspapers, people wrote to him for his autograph, and he could have had the freedom of any city in civilization delivered to him in a box by a Board of Aldermen. At seventy years he had all sorts of decorations, among them the cross of the Legion of Honor, the cordon of the Italian Order of St. Maurice, the badge of the honorary Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India, and the ribbon of the Persian Order of the Lion and the Sun, all of which he was able to read the inscrip- tions upon. Aside from these honors he was President of the French Geographi- cal Society, a member of the Academy of Sciences, and was receiving prizes and honorary memberships from all the learned societies in Christendom. But, not content with these honors, M. de Lesseps aspired for more, and decided to effect further improvements upon the original design of the Maker of this planet. It was not enough for de Lesseps to have connected the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, as was never intended at the expiration of the six days when heaven, earth, the sea and all that ‘1 them is, were created; but he must come over and attempt to put our continent into better shape for commercial purposes. Now, if Nature had ever intended that a canal should be constructed across the Isthmus of Panama, she would have whispered the secret to Jay Gould, and by this time there would be a channel cut, with the water running up hill from the Chagres River, and Jay would own Central America and have mortgages on the merchant marine of the world, aside from which the company would be paying several hundred per cent. on watered stock to the directors, none at all to the stockholders. But de Lesseps must needs interfere to rearrange the Atlantic and Pacific currents, and the result is that he is in trouble. He has Keely- motored so much of the population of France that the Panama stock- holders held the balance of power in Paris at the recent election whereby General Baker obtained a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, and now stands pledged, when he becomes dictator, to complete the canal across the isthmus as well as to regain Alsace and Lorraine. LIFE'S GALLERY OF BEAUTIES. No. 5. COUNT FERDINAND DE LESSEPS. As M, de Lesseps will probably die before the Panama Canal stock- holders find out that they have been swindled, it will not make much difference to him, perhaps, and doubtless he has found life worth living for the fourteen years that he has ventured to linger here beyond his allotted time. M. de Lesseps married at the early age of sixty-four, and at present has but eight children. In spite of the fact that he is now eighty-four years of age, he insists upon being vigorous and hearty. His longevity would be a valuable text for the Total Abstinence Society were it not for the untoward circumstance that he has con- sumed spirits and tobacco all his life. M. de Lesseps was endowed at birth with the title of Vicomte, but has managed to live it down. ~ HE: Why, George, I didn’t understand that the Maz? and Express was a religious paper; I thought it was a funny paper! HE: Yes, it’s both; its manner of being religious makes it funny.