original and comprehensive. The more difficult points in jurisprudence he coveted and welcomed; he delighted in rugged thought and in considering and weighing decisions. His power as a lawyer was immense, and his fame as counselor, debater and advocate will be lasting. His knowledge of law, of human nature, and of his surroundings enforced by great personality and with language sharp, clear, impetuous, gave him unusual precedence over his fellows, and frequently secured him an easy victory. In his opinion every legal case had two sides, and the one needed to be as well considered as the other. His facility in securing and marshaling facts, and method of concentrating them till all fell as a single force upon an audience or a jury, were amazing. The larger number of juries promptly accepted his conclusions. On such occasions, as well as on those more public, his brilliant rhetoric would so burnish his sentiments that severe reproof and unwelcome truths would often pass wholly unchallenged. While he had neither the solemnity nor weight of Webster, or the mild

ness and fluency of Clay, still less the fervor and flame of Douglas, he surpassed all these in decision, directness and repartee. Many easily exceeded him in wit, and outranked him in elegance of expression, but in irony and satire he had no superior. It is said that Charles Sumner regarded him as "the best knower of English to its last shadow" of all who in his days sat in the senate. A dangerous antagonist, a bold hard-hitter and at times passionate and tragical, he was courteous however toward the sincere, but resolved and firm that the false and deceiving should not prevail. Scenes where others were appalled nerved him to greater effort. Neither threat nor temptation could wean him from right, nor flattery recast his opinion or change his attitude. If he was exclusive, it was on his political and not on his human side. He was the very soul of honor. Abhorring all shams of whatsoever nature, he made them the objects of special attack, using the freest speech. His integrity was sublime; and to his last hour glittered as a star in the sombre dome of heaven. No spoils were ever traced to his hand, for he served the public-not himself. He would

"Rather be a dog, and bay the moon,

Than such a Roman !

In fact as many of his contemporaries in political life with advancing years became richer and richer, he became poorer and poorer. His uprightness, honesty and probity have invested his name with a glory that will enlarge as his motives are known and his acts become understood. In his friendships he was quick and sensitive, but when broken resentment was well nigh implacable. Recalling the period in which he lived, the important measures so often in peril, and the need of concerted action it could not well have been otherwise. His frailties were those which encircled the neck of strength, and which brought into bold relief his golden virtues. In his inner heart he deplored his infirmities, and his consciousness of them proved no light burden. No one could touch his personality without peril, or impugn his selfhood with complacency. Blended with the courage of his convictions you always found the courage of contempt. Mr. Conkling's partisanship was intense; his abilities to lead have never been questioned. When his motives were suspected or doubted he became imperious; and it grew as intrigue imperiled the right and principle was being set aside by petty schemes of selfishness. Often his imperiousness meant life-life for the cause-life for the truth. In the rôle of statesman his zeal, patriotism, purity of purpose and devotion to what he regarded as the wise policy of the republic, no one, not even the loudest of his political foes, ever doubted. Thoroughly American in his views he was as sagacious as he was

positive; never losing sight of great fundamental truths, or forgetting the rights and liberties of the many or the privileges of the few. He constantly labored to strengthen the arm of authority, and if need be to coerce the minority into silence. Confiding implicitly in the integrity of a free people, he respected their opinions and accepted promptly honest decisions. Freedom of thought-of person-of justice--of election-were potent factors in his creed, and for their attainment he labored for the wisest legislation. The country-the whole country and the development with the perpetuity of her institutions-formed his constant aim and was the goal of his ambition. It therefore hardly need be added that in his decease the nation lost one of its most active patriots, and his native state an honored, loyal son, whose undeviating devotion to free institutions in war and in peace, and in peace and war, shall be cherished as an inheritance to her children and her children's children to the remotest age. High in the royal pantheon of America's worthies stands the name of Roscoe Conkling.

Saan & Barkey

ABOUT PHILADELPHIA IN 1750

Philadelphia was literally a city of "brotherly love" until the middle of the eighteenth century. There was not a fort nor a battery, and not a gun within her borders; the city lay a tempting prize that even any wellarmed privateer could seize and sack. The French war had spread terror throughout the land, and the other colonies were active in preparations for defence. Franklin tried to counteract the Quaker influence, through pamphlets which pictured the prospective horrors of an attack upon the city by the vilest and most abandoned of mankind, and finally an associction was formed for military exercise, and companies united into a regiment.

As there was not a serviceable cannon in all Pennsylvania, a lottery— the usual expedient for raising money at that period-was instituted, and through its services some old cannon obtained from Boston. A battery of logs and earth was thrown up below the town and the cannon mounted. It was however esteemed insufficient defence in case of sudden assault, and Philadelphia sent two or three of her best men to New York to borrow cannon. Governor Clinton [the English governor of that name] at first refused to lend; but at dinner with his council, where wine flowed freely and fast, he softened by degrees, and finally said Philadelphia should have the loan of six. After a few more bumpers he advanced to ten; and at length he very good naturedly conceded eighteen. These guns were transported to Philadelphia, and henceforward a nightly guard was maintained until the end of the war.

The young Quakers, and not a few of their elders, secretly rejoiced in such warlike measures, notwithstanding their peace principles. Some amusing anecdotes are related of the various expedients by which money was raised for the unfriendly "pounders." The Union Fire Company, which consisted of twenty-two Quakers and eight firemen of other persuasions, had £60 in their treasury, which Franklin proposed should be expended in buying tickets in the cannon lottery. At the meeting, when the votes were to be taken, only one Quaker was present to oppose the proceeding. In the midst of the dispute a private message was brought to Franklin that eight Quakers were at a tavern near by, ready to sustain the cannon enterprise, if needed, but hoping they should not be called upon to vote against their own sect if the point could be carried without their assistance. Secure of a majority, the matter was so arranged that the

resolution succeeded without bringing them to the front. "If we fail," said Franklin to one of the eight before the result was accomplished, “let us move the purchase of a fire-engine with the money; the Quakers can have no objection to that; and then if you nominate me, and I you, as a committee for that purpose, we will buy a great gun, which is certainly a fire-engine."

Philadelphia then stretched along the Delaware a mile or more, extended inland perhaps half a mile, and was a great sombre, shady village of Quaker aspect. The houses were chiefly of brick and stone, and nearly all built after the same pattern. Handsome gardens and stately old trees encompassed them. Orchards planted with mathematical precision flourished on every side, fruit abounded, every family kept cows; and bears, wolves and wild turkeys were often shot within eight miles of the State House. The Quakers numbered about one-third of the population of the town, and were thrifty and sedate. They moved in certain grooves, just as they laid out the city in exact squares. Life was slow in those days at the best. There was none of the fuss and flurry which came later with the steam engine, with banking, with cotton, with the daily newspaper, and with the railroad and the telegraph. The people were just beginning to regard with awe the placing of sharp-pointed iron rods upon the tops of buildings, to draw the electrical fire from thunderstorms before it came nigh enough to strike.

The Germans were coming in rapidly. Many proceeded at once into the interior. In 1749 twenty-five shiploads-in all twelve thousand-landed in Philadelphia; nor was this number above the average of several other years. These were slow but industrious. Prior to 1750 the whole internal commerce of Philadelphia was performed by means of pack-horses. There was quite an interchange of commodities with the Indians in times of peace, which was the source of much wealth to the inhabitants. Great fortunes, however, centred in a few; so few that long before the Revolution "Society" consisted, as Mrs. Adams records, of a single set, and that set so limited that the parties usually consisted of the same persons. The governor, two or three officials, a great lawyer or two, a doctor or two, half a dozen families retired from business, a dozen merchants who had been enriched by the complicated and circuitous commerce of the place, and some other persons, constituted the entire circle of those who had leisure enough for the elegant enjoyments of life. Philadelphia had no great staple such as tobacco, rice, or codfish, and no extensive manufactures. From Great Britain were imported more than ten times the amount of what it exported to the mother country. This was accomplished

VOL. XX.-No. 2.-8