Another remarkable contribution to the historical literature of our times from our statesmen who write, is that from the pen of the brilliant young member from Tennessee, the Hon. James Phelan, who represented the Memphis district in the fiftieth congress, and was re-elected to a seat in the present body. His History of Tennessee-The Making of a State, published in 1888 by Houghton, Mifflin & Company, met a reception from the public and critics alike of which the veriest veteran in the field might well be proud. It tells the story of the gifted author's adopted state, from the cabin of William Bean on the Watauga, in 1769, down to the outbreak of the war. With the true writer's instinct he has been quick to seize upon the salient points spread richly over a field that has virtually lain fallow for a hundred years. The founding of "The Watauga Association," the first commonwealth beyond the mountains, and its successor, "The Lost State of Franklin," two of the most remarkable and romantic. episodes of southwestern history, receive their full measure of attention in the earlier chapters. Especially is the book rich in describing the political life of the state during the quarter of a century immediately preceding the war-the years of the rise and ascendency of the great Whig party in the state those halcyon days of barbecues and joint debates, where the grove was the forum and the people were the umpires-those days when there were political giants in the land, the memory of whose fierce encounters upon the hustings is still kept green around the hearthstones of the hardy and long-lived mountaineers. The book has passed the dead line of the first edition, and is still in constant demand.

The same author has also produced a school history of the state, richly embellished with maps and engravings. This work is brought down to the present time, and is being generally adopted by the schools of Tennessee. Mr. Phelan contributed the articles upon Andrew Johnson, Sam Houston, and some others, in Appleton's Cyclopedia of Biography, recently published. He is also proprietor of the Memphis Avalanche, one of the most prosperous papers in the south, though he has not written anything for it since entering actively into the field of politics. He is a hard student, takes a keen interest in the current literature of the day, and looks confidently forward into a future which his friends unhesitatingly pronounce full of richest promise.

Another legislator who has done work of special excellence is the Hon. M. A. Foran, who represented the Cleveland district in the fiftieth congress. During his term of service he wrote a novel entitled The Other Side, a social study based on fact. It is dedicated to the workingmen and working women of America, and, as indicated by its title, is a study of

those questions of society, of labor and capital, which have of late years attracted so much attention alike from the general public and the lawgiver. Mr. Foran was amply able to deal intelligently with these questions, being a cooper by trade, a lawyer by profession, and a legislator by the grace of his people. The book was published by a Washington firm in 1886, and has had a wide reading.

The country at large is accustomed to think of speaker Thomas B. Reed in his capacity of politician and statesman-as the leader of his party upon the floor of the house. He is known to friend and foe alike for his ready wit, his rapier-like thrusts in the arena, his biting sarcasm in debate, when the foeman is worthy of his steel. During the busy years of his long term of service in congress he has found little time to devote to the pursuit of letters, and yet that he has literary ability of a very high order is amply proved by the various contributions he has given to the public through the periodical press. His principal articles have been: Grover Cleveland's Acceptance, Alaska, and The St. Louis Convention, published in the North American Review; Rules of the House of Represen tatives, in the Century; and The Protectionist's View, in Belford's Magazine. In 1885 he delivered an oration before the alumni of Colby University at Waterville, Maine, and in the following year an oration at the Portland Centennial, both bearing the very highest evidences of scholarly attainments and the true literary instinct.

The Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, though not a member of the legislative branch of the government, is none the less entitled to a prominent place in the list of our statesmen who have the literary gift. For some years before his appointment to a place upon the civil service commission in Washington he was one of the leaders among the younger men in the councils of his party in his state and city, and during this time he served one term in the legislature at Albany. Judging from the work he has accomplished within the past few years, his has been a most busy life. In addition to his manifold interests at his eastern home, he has given much time and attention to business affairs in the far west, and in addition has found time to write no less than seven works, aside from contributing largely to the periodical press of this country and England. His published volumes are: The Naval War of 1812, or, The History of the United States' Navy During the Last War with Great Britain, by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1882; Hunting Trip of a Ranchman, from the same press in 1885, being sketches of sport in the northern cattle plains, and superbly illustrated by Frost and others. In 1887-1888 he contributed Thomas Hart Benton, and Gouverneur Morris, to the American Statesmen series already mentioned.

Then came his Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, brought out in 1888, by the Century Company, and illustrated by F. Remington; and in the same year Essays on Practical Politics, by the Putnams. Perhaps his most important work is his latest, entitled The Winning of the West, in two large volumes, with maps and illustrations, and also bearing the imprint of the Putnams. It portrays in graphic language the history of our western border from 1769, when the tide of emigration first reached the summit of the great Appalachian chain, down to the close of the revolution, when, thanks to such men as Boone and Kenton, Sevier, Robertson, and the Shelbys, General George Rogers Clark, and a dozen others of like heroic mould, the inchoate nation along the sea-board found itself in possession of an empire beyond the mountains, that had hitherto belonged to the Anglo-Saxon in theory only. Of his magazine work, Mr. Roosevelt has contributed articles on hunting to the Century, St. Nicholas, and Outing, and essays on social and political subjects to various periodicals. Some Recent Criticisms of America, dealing with Matthew Arnold, Lord Wolseley, and Sir L. Griffin, is one of his latest essays.

Another congressman who has been working in the field of letters is the Hon. W. D. Owen, the representative from the tenth district of Indi ana. He has published two books: the first, under the title of Success, in 1877; the second, called The Genius of Industry, in 1882. Mr. Owen is a minister in the Christian church, and teaches a Bible class in the Sunday school of his denomination at Washington.

Of literary legislators in the senate end of the capitol, the Hon. Gilbert A. Pierce, senator from the new state of North Dakota, is entitled to mention. Among his published works are, Zachariah the Congressman, which first appeared as a serial in a newspaper, and afterward was brought out in book form under the title of Peggy, a Country Heroine; and about the same time, A Dangerous Woman; Being the Experience of the Hon. John Biles, M. C. But perhaps his most important production in the way of book-making is The Dickens Dictionary, published in 1872 by J. R. Osgood & Co. This work is a key to the characters and principal incidents in the tales of Charles Dickens, and is a most valuable work of reference to every student of our English-American literature.

Senator Pierce has written two plays, one of which, A Hundred Wives, has been quite successful. As indicated by its title, it deals with the questions of Mormonism and polygamy. He has also contributed magazine articles to the Atlantic Monthly and other periodicals, as well as verses to the magazines and newspapers-these latter being modestly denominated by him as "merely ephemeral trifles." In speaking of these matters the

senator-author says: "Of course, like all scribblers, I have many manuscripts, some completed, and others in various stages of development, lying around in desks and trunks and cabinets, waiting for a resurrection trump, which I fear will never sound."

The writer has seen somewhere, at some time, a statement in print to the effect that the Hon. John J. Ingalls has a book in course of preparation, which he expects to print some time in the future. In reply to an inquiry as to what foundation there might be for such rumor, the distinguished Kansas statesman writes: "I have never published a book, and have not even kept a scrap-book." Whatever may be the senator's literary intentions, which are certainly not extensively revealed in the foregoing, the reading public can have no doubt that he could write a book if he wished a book which would cause the members of the public aforesaid to tread upon each other's heels in their eagerness to buy, for no man in either branch of the national legislature has the English language more completely at his control. He can mould it at will into a rapier or a claymore-a weapon for a contest of wits, or a broad-sword for a twohanded argument. He has contributed articles to the North American Review, and perhaps other periodicals, since becoming a senator.

There are many congressmen who at some time or another in their past lives have been newspaper men, but the one who now and then becomes a congressman, by the way of intermission from the arduous duties of the tripod, is the Hon. A. J. Cummings of New York city. He is a newspaper man from instinct and from life-long training. It is said that in the course of a rather adventurous life he has set type in nearly every state in the Union. He has been a writer upon the New York Tribune, the Sun, and manager of the Express. He was editor of the Evening Sun when elected to the seat he now holds in the present congress. He represents this paper in the capitol, and is in a position to gain the inside facts in regard to every matter of legislation that comes before either house.

Another writer who should not be overlooked is the venerable chaplain of the house, Rev. W. H. Milburn. Away back in the fifties he published Ten Years of Preacher Life, or, Chapters from an Autobiography; The Rifle, Axe, and Saddle-bags, and Other Lectures; and The Pioneers, Preachers, and People of the Mississippi Valley. He has also been a contributor to the periodical press.

Are the walks of statesmanship conducive to literary life, or does literary life lead to legislative halls?

WASHINGTON, D. C.

Milton D. Adkins.

MINOR TOPICS

PRESIDENT GARFIELD'S SILENT JOURNEY

In Dr. Patton's valuable History of the American People there is a graphic description of the removal of President Garfield in July, 1881, from the executive mansion in Washington to the cottage at Elberon where he subsequently died. We quote the paragraph entire for the benefit of our appreciative readers :

"The President lay at the White House for sixty-six days, and often apparently at the verge of death. It was essential that he should be removed from the debilitating influence of that climate to an atmosphere more cool and more health inspiring. Long Branch on the ocean shore was decided upon. The Pennsylvania Railway furnished the train and its equipments, their most commodious and sumptuous car and three others. The nation's invalid was placed on board by tender hands, and the train at 6.30 A.M. moved quietly off and even when under full speed with scarcely a perceptible vibration. So admirable were the arrangements, the right-of-way was given over six roads, a pilot-engine preceding the train by twenty minutes; and lest the patient should be disturbed, not a bell was rung nor a signal-whistle blown. The train for a portion of the time made seventy miles an hour, stopping only to replenish water and fuel. Along the route, especially through the cities, the people in sympathizing crowds stood silently by as the train passed, and none the less was this interest manifested at the minor stations. This feeling was not limited to the multitudes that saw the train gliding along swiftly and almost noiselessly as if conscious of the burden it was bearing, but the telegraph, as if in sympathy, laid aside business to carry messages over the Union from almost every station passed, telling the hour and the condition of the patient as reported by the physicians on written slips of paper which were thrown from the train. Thousands upon thousands in the cities watched these bulletins as they appeared every few minutes. At length, after passing over nearly two hundred and forty miles, the cottage was reached, and in less than ten minutes the Presi-, dent was safely carried within. Here were witnessed similar manifestations; crowds of people had assembled and were silently awaiting the arrival of the train, and also carriages filled with summer visitors from the neighboring watering-places, while in shore lay twenty or thirty pleasure yachts whose decks were covered with spectators."

MRS. CUSTER SURROUNDED WITH BUFFALOES

CAMP LIFE IN KANSAS TWENTY YEARS, AGO

When we were encamped on Big Creek, Kansas, buffaloes were all about us ; the Kansas Pacific railroad had been completed only to Fort Hays, and the herds

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