his attempt to bring Texas into the line of dependence, and his defeat and capture by General Houston is a household story throughout the land. There is manifest sympathy between the graphic illustrations of this remarkable work and the magnitude of the field and progress of events through the centuries, as presented by its contributors. The geographical conditions supposed to exist by America's discoverers are now intensely interesting. The maps and pictures teach us many lessons worth knowing -all of which are copies from historic originals. There is a charm in turning pages which apparently have the gift of doing their own talking, reading to us, so to speak, instead of exacting the courtesy and labor of being read. A CHARACTERISTIC ORDER OF GENERAL SCOTT HIS REMEDY FOR INTEMPERANCE The Aldrich Collection, in the Iowa State Library, has lately come into possession of the Order Book of General Henry Dodge, a leading hero in the Blackhawk war. It is a folio volume of about four hundred pages of unruled paper, half filled, in the hand-writing of General Dodge, with orders from superiors, his own orders to subordinates, and the official letters which he wrote between 1832 to 1836. Aside from this volume very little of the writing of General Dodge has come to light in these later years, when it has been much sought. He was the first governor of Wisconsin territory when the present state of Iowa was included within its borders, and one of her first United States senators after Wisconsin was admitted to the Union. One of the early orders recorded in this very precious volume was issued by General Winfield Scott while in command at Rock Island. It reads as follows: Order No. 16. ASST. ADJT. GEN'L'S OFFICE, FORT ARMSTRONG. 1. The cholera has made its appearance on Rock Island. The two first cases were brought by mistake from Captain Ford's company of United States mounted rangers; one of these died yesterday, the other is convalescent. A second death occurred this morning in the hospital in Fort Armstrong. The man was of the 4th Infantry, and had been some time there under treatment for debility. The ranger now convalescent was in the same hospital with him for sixteen hours before a cholera hospital could be established outside the camp and fort. 2. It is believed that all these men were of intemperate habits. The ranger who is dead, it is known, generated the disease within him, by a fit of intoxication. 3. This disease having appeared among the rangers and on this island, all in commission are called upon to exert themselves to the utmost to stop the spread of the calamity. 4. Sobriety, cleanliness of person, cleanliness of camp and quarters, together with care in the preparation of the men's messes, are the grand preventatives. No neglect under these important heads will be overlooked or tolerated. 5. In addition to the foregoing the senior surgeon present recommends the use of flannel shirts, flannel drawers, and woolen stockings; but the commanding general, who has seen much of disease, knows that it is intemperance, which, in the present state of the atmosphere, generates and spreads the calamity, and that when once spread good and temperate men are likely to take the infec tion. 6. He therefore peremptorily commands that every soldier or ranger who shall be found drunk or sensibly intoxicated after the publication of this order be compelled, as soon as his strength will permit, to dig a grave at a suitable burying-place, large enough for his own reception, as such grave cannot fail soon to be wanted for the drunken man himself, or some drunken companion. 7. This order is given, as well to serve for the punishment of drunkenness, as to spare good and temperate men the labor of digging graves for their worthless companions. 8. The sanitary regulations now in force respecting communications between the camp near the mouth of Rock river and other camps and posts in the neighborhood are revoked. Col. Eustis, however, whose troops are perfectly free from cholera, will report to the commanding general whether he believes it for the safety of his command that these regulations should be renewed. THE PURITAN BIRTHRIGHT The Puritans of the seventeenth century were the most earnest and intelligently devout people the world had then or has since known. Their study of the Mosaic law was more profound and obedience to the inspiration from Mount Sinai more literal than that of the Israelites themselves. One of the most graphic pictures in the account of the patriarchs is the story of the sale of Esau's birthright to his younger brother Jacob. The Puritan first born also had a birthright, but, unlike the son of Isaac, he clung to it tenaciously. The Puritans took the Bible for their law and their gospel, but they had in them all the Saxon's love for land and the Norman's passion for mastership. They rejected the feudal custom which the Norman conquest of England brought into vogue, whereby the first-born male of a family inherited lands under what we know as primogeniture. But they did not go back to the old Saxon Gavelkind which prevailed before the Conquest, under which all children shared alike. They made a compromise. They provided for all their children, but strove to maintain headship in the family to keep the fire burning upon the family altar by a curious contrivance. They adopted a scheme of property succession which seemed to have something of the Saxon, all children sharing alike, and something of the Norman feudal, which gave all to the eldest son. The Puritans followed neither one nor the other. Upon the plains of Judea, among that peculiar people in whose behalf the Deity was believed to have special interest, they found their exemplar. In the plan of Moses the tribal or clan relation was paramount. The family and not the individual was the unit. Hence, while each child had his portion, as is shown in the parable of the Prodigal Son, yet the eldest son had his birthright. In the same parable, when the elder son murmured at the rejoicings over the return of the Prodigal, the father wisely replied, "Son, thou art ever with me, and all I have is thine." So the Puritans gave the eldest son a birthright, that is, a double portion. Like the children of Israel, the English Puritans in their exodus took with them to Massachusetts Bay wives and children, flocks and herds. Heedless of the clash of arms in the mother country, they went to work to formulate laws for the new world, in which work their successors have been fruitful even to this day. The laws, just one hundred in number, bear in their margin, in many cases, reference to Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, upon which they were based. They are entitled The Body of Liberties of 1641. By the eighty-first paragraph of the Body of Liberties of 1641, it was provided that "when parents dye intestate, the Elder sonne shall have a doble portion of his whole estate, reall and personall, unlesse the Generall Court upon just reason shall Judge otherwise." The Code of 1660 re-enacted this provision in somewhat modernized spelling: "Provided, the eldest sonn shall have a Double Portion, and where there are no sonns, the daughters shall inherit as Copartners, unless the Court upon just Cause alledged, shall otherwise Determine." Under the provincial charter of William and Mary, the general court by an act passed November 1, 1692, entitled "An act for the settling and distribution of the estates of intestates," re-affirms this principle in these words: . . . "the estate of all to be equal, except the eldest son then surviving (where there is no issue of the first born or of any other elder son), who shall have two shares, or a double portion of the whole: and where there are no sons, the daughters shall inherit as copartners." . . How like the last clause is the command of Israel's inspired lawgiver upon the same subject (Numbers, xxvii. 8): "And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die and have no son then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter." The preamble to chapter 14 of the Province Laws, 1692-93, reveals something of the hardships of pioneer life and tender solicitude for the welfare of children: "Whereas, estates in these plantations do consist chiefly of lands which have been subdued and brought to improvement by the industry and labour of the proprietors, with the assistance of their children, the younger children generally having been longest and most serviceable unto their parents in that behalf, who have not personal estates to give out unto them in portions, or otherwise to recompense their labour." The eldest son's family did not lose his double portion or birthright, even if he died before his father. His issue inherited his share, but in the event of the estate being incapable of division, as was often the case, the next eldest son took the homestead, paying to the other heirs such an amount in cash, "corn, or cattle" as a committee of neighbors, "three sufficient householders," should determine to be equitable. The principle seems to have been to keep the homestead in the possession of the oldest living male of the family name, he being presumably the best able to maintain the family standing and traditions. Not even the American revolution, when the glittering French catchwords, "liberty, equality, and fraternity," were so popular, sufficed to effect |